Where has the year gone?  January's drawing to an end--in a school setting, as the frantic over-assessment season begins, the school year is largely over--and every blog I meant to write in so long remains unwritten.

There are reasons--just not good reasons.  We all suffer setbacks--economic, health, relationships--our setbacks are both unique and global.  Nevertheless, the human spirit compells, usually, a going on.

I meant to write most recently about Susan Boyle and Taylor Swift, about the denial of dreams due to appearance or other shallow considerations, and the miracle of talent--but I didn't.

I meant to write about the heart-rending death of innocence, as a two-year old girl was brutally killed, and while school officials were criminalized, the drug-using, negligent, abusive mother waltzed free--but I didn't.

I meant to explain why Christmas lights send shivers of hope through me, and why I don't understand anyone who begrudges the celebration of Christmas--any religion, any person should be tolerant of hope--but I didn't write that, either.

For some reason, the feeling I get almost every November that writing is a conceit I shouldn't indulge, that it doesn't matter--that I can't do it--has lingered. Usually, by December, I'd be writing again, happily. January came, though, and still--there was no worry, no urgency about all those unwritten words.  But recently, my six year old granddaughter (the oldest of eight) put her first story, complete with invented spelling, up on the wall outside my classroom.  Countless years ago, Mrs. Wheeler put my story up on the school bulletin board--I was six, too.

Life comes at us hard, and sometimes, there's too much of it--or not enough of it.  I'm not sure yet.  But life is what we have at the moment, what we had in the past, and what we will come to terms with again in the future.

My granddaughter's story thrilled me, and shamed me.  January's almost over--it's time to start the new year.