I kept thinking all week that there was no better way for me to kick-in the New Year than to visit Cardiac Rehab on New Year’s Eve. It was a good idea, my friends there were overjoyed to see Red (me too, to a lesser degree), and he seemed equally happy to see them.

I feel very connected to Patty and Robin and the men and women of cardiac rehabilitation, they are warriors and heroes, loving and uncomplaining. I am grateful to them for making me feel so welcome and supported through a hard time.

Many good and wonderful and strange and troubling things happened to me in 2014, but I have to say that Open Heart Surgery was perhaps the most significant event of the year in some ways, not all that important in others. In 2014, I published a book, wrote hundreds of blog posts, took thousands of photos, co-hosted two Open Houses, made several good and new friends, helped some sheep give births to some lambs, lost others, wrote a play, let go of our first Bedlam Farm, got a new camera, began the glorious and challenging process of healing.

My love for Maria and I our lives together deepened and grew in ways I did not imagine were possible, or frankly even knew existed.

Cardiac Rehab was a defining event for me, I made new friends there, took responsibility for my recovery and my life, got back in touch with my body and began treating it well and lovingly. Tomorrow, Maria and I are having New Year’s dinner at the farm of Ed and Carol Gulley, she and I became friends in Cardiac Rehab, we are bringing a pie and a tray of cookies, she is feeding her family the 35-lb turkey from their own far, Bejosh.

Can’t think of a better place. Life and circumstance did not make it possible for Maria and I to share our holidays with family, that is just the reality of it, but family comes in many different forms and in many different ways, and if you want it, you will find it, or it will find you.

The people in Cardiac Rehab become my family in more ways than one, we are the hero journey together, forever connected. I’ll write more about New Year’s tomorrow, but I wish everyone a meaningful New Year’s Eve. The older people I know keep telling me they will stay at home and “watch the ball drop,” the younger ones are going out to party.

Maria and I are going to engage on some New Year’s ritual with a couple of friends. Much love and good wishes to you tonight, and, of course, tomorrow and the year beyond.