Exactly a year ago today, I watched d ride off in a van with almost all our possessions, and settled in for five days on an air mattress. A year ago today, we stopped pretty much living in London.
I've been noticing the differences in the world today. The most obvious of course is that we came to help my Dad, and now, he's not in the world.
In Disappearing terms, a year ago today, I looked a lot better than I do right now. I had two big coats that fitted, and a penchant for scarves around a clearly defined neck. At this point I have none of these, and I want them back.
To that end, I got back on the bike this morning. Felt ridiculously hard of course, coming as it did out of a clear blue sky to a body no longer used to it. But also, ridiculously good. Something about the doing of it felt right, as well as more than a little virtuous. I will now do this every day until Christmas (when we wake up somewhere else), and meanwhile make plans for the new year, and a new assault on the layers of solidifying fat that weigh down my body, hold down my abilities and press down on my mood.
As years go, it would be hard to say something laudatory about 2012. The hope that we held out for the year turned out to be unjustified, the effort that I'd applied throughout the preceding year was broken and slid back two and a half stone or more. We lost the rock of our family, and we flailed, hopelessly, in the loss of him.
But here we are. Together, and with a better quality of life, a better pace, a better way of being. More song, a business, and still, a shedload of unpacked boxes full of things about which we've largely forgotten. Merthyr itself has been reasonably kind to us, despite the cloud-strewn year we've had. And so begins our second Welsh year - with determination, resurrection of effort, and a commitment to make year one (of the Disappearing Man, rather than of the Merthyr Life) mean something long term, rather than simply "that time when I lost a lot of weight".
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