2010,

It’s time for my letter to you. I’d call you “dear,” but you are no more dear to me than giant cockroaches, slimy silverfish and moldy bread. In short, there’s less than a day and a half left of you, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see you go.

Being obsessed with details and prone to concessions, even where undeserved, I’m not the kind of girl to assess any given situation in a black-or-white way. So I’ll concede that 2010 brought me some good things ~ deepened friendships, online and off. A sense of contentment (resignation?) with where we lived. I saw M. I went to the lake for the 4th of July. Two good friends were married. I had a new job that I was thrilled to acquire. J.Lo also miraculously landed new work. With a great new church, my faith deepened. And 2010 did bless me with countless little everyday joys. Not to mention a fabulous new pair of boots.

But let’s just be blunt: As a year, 2010, you pretty much blew. Early on, you ripped me off for a few hundred dollars on an airline ticket that, due to ticket transfer fees, I’ll never get to use. I saw M, yes, and on my birthday to boot, but then unexpectedly had to drag her all the way up the east coast to my grandma’s funeral. And although I wasn’t close with them, my grandma’s sister, brother and goddaughter also all died in subsequent months. My brother had skin cancer and my father was diagnosed with Barrett’s Esophagus. J.Lo’s way-too-premature cataracts worsened. Bailey Brown, a.k.a. sweetest dog alive, had an oral tumor scare. And you took M and s.m.’s Zep!

You killed our car time and time again, and hundreds more dollars, as well as a great, smoking heap of frustration, was spent on towing and labor. You gave me the prospect of teaching a graduate-level writing class on slavery – and then oh, that didn’t work out, either. And granted, it didn’t work out because we decided to move, but if J.Lo’s job hadn’t sucked ass in the first part of 2010, we wouldn’t have had a need to find a new one. So thanks a ton for keep him in a low-paying, demoralizing, soul-sucking, badly managed environment and giving him no other choice.

And thanks, too, for making our move so damned difficult. I mean really. J.Lo’s 2-hour-a-day, 6-hours-every-weekend commute was a real thrill for two insufferable months, especially those times the car died and required new alternators, a post-bedtime rescue mission an hour outside of town, an 80-mile tow, and a painfully long refund process. Among other inconveniences.

Also, single-parenting during that time was super-awesome. And by super-awesome, I mean exhausting, depressing, confining, frustrating and not altogether great for my parental self-esteem.

The house-hunting process was also uniquely joyful. J.Lo is so scarred from early property viewings, he still can’t even divulge many details beyond ceiling holes, bird skeletons, faulty framing and leaky basements. And then there was the place we thought we had, only to be slapped down at the last second in the face of an uptight homeowner and an $11,000 deposit because we like to keep our dogs indoors.

Thanks – no really, thanks a bunch – for not one single flipping house showing in 2010. Talk about making the process difficult. Oh wait – there was a single showing appointment, conveniently scheduled during moving week, in which I worked my ass off for 12 hours straight to make the place presentable and no one ultimately showed up. And no one told me. That was rad.

And it was super-awesome as well when you decided to change my job that I loved all around so that I quit and un-quit and am still, still on a ridiculous emotional roller-coaster ride, wondering if I should stay or go. Way to strip away the goodness and meaning.

Strep throat on Thanksgiving was a real treat, followed by the Death Cold, a fallen arch/bum ankle and another cold smack dab in the middle of the moving process. (And that was all just me, nevermind J.Lo and the children’s own illnesses, doctor visits, medications and bills. And my caring for them.) But none of these compared to the stomach bug acquired the night before Moving Day. Vomiting my face off until 3 AM. I mean, you had to be kidding me. Except you so weren’t. What the EFF, 2010. I could barely lift a damn box the next day, much less drive myself, the dogs, the fish and the children 3 1/2 hours to our new destination.

And since we’re leasing/holding down a mortgage simultaneously, finances are as interesting as ever. You know the details, and you know they suck. Thanks for not doing us any favors there.

Now nearing the bitter end of you, you insist on maintaining your awesomeness. Why not go out with a  bang, eh? Throw an esophageal cancer diagnosis at my longtime BFF’s father and put another relative of ours in the hospital – why not. It’s fun stuff. For you.

I’m sure there’s more, but I’ll not waste another second lamenting you. Let’s just hope that in spite of the Apocalyptic-fearing culture that’s about to unfold in response to misinterpreted Mayan predictions, media hype and Ashton Kutcher’s annoying preparations, your younger sibling 2011 does better. Because let’s face it, the bar has been set pretty low.

Not at all fondly,

penelope