Dear 2010:

I'll be honest.  You were not my best year.  You will always be the year that I lost my grandmother.  You will always be the year that my father battled lung cancer.  These two things are so huge that I suspect that they will overshadow most of the other wonderful things that happened in the past 12 months when I think back to 2010 in my memory.  And that's not fair because a lot of good things happened in 2010 as well.  So in order to jog my future faulty memory, here are five things that happened during your tenure that made my life a better place to be.

1. My father had his first follow-up PET scan two weeks ago, and he continues to be cancer-free.
2. I got a promotion at work right after I started thinking about how I could actually make that happen.  Also, my professional life continues to be content and satisfying for many, many reasons.
3. I got my first serger, and it was a lot easier to deal with than I had feared.  I am now obsessed with knits and have to make myself work with wovens.  And I learned how to fit patterns to my wonky, three-different-sized body!
4. Mr. flyskim and I had our first out-of-town vacation without family in nearly five years.  New Orleans was definitely a highlight.  Also, we flew in just prior to a big storm with high winds and were safely on the ground and in our hotel when flights started being diverted to Houston.  We heard a few accounts of the nightmare it was trying to land in the middle of the storm (plane just dropping 1000 feet, wind shear, flight attendants crying, etc.), and all I can say is if we had been in the middle of that, we would have stayed in Houston because there is no power on Earth that could have gotten me back in the air.
5. Mr. flyskim.  I don't know what I ever did to deserve you, but I hope to keep it up.

So, nothing earth-shatteringly big (except for the dad's test results).  But if you aren't thankful for the small things, the world will never trust you with the big things.  And while I can't say that I'm sorry to see you go, I'm also not shoving you out the door, hat in hand.  I won't lie.  I have great hopes for your successor, and even if 2011 is uneventful, it will outshine you.  May you live in interesting times is a curse, after all.  But you didn't do such a bad job as years go (2004, I'm looking at you when I say this).  You were just a victim of circumstance, and in the future, I hope to remember you fairly, if not always fondly.