Wow, 2009 sucked.

Last year this time, New Year’s Eve was filled with foreboding and dread. Heavy things were coming down at Kristi’s job, and we were beginning to fear that soon our copywriting business would have to do our financial heavy lifting. California was coming apart at the seams; slashed budgets statewide were raising the spectre of unpaid teachers, unpaid tax refunds, unpaid everything. We had big bills and weren’t sure at all how we were going to pay them. We honestly weren’t sure that we were going to make it in 2009.

Then in the first quarter, everything came collapsing down around us. Kristi’s grandmother died. Business dried up; all of our usual Q1 clients had stopped spending, and we depend on Q1 to be our busiest season of the year. Kristi’s job situation went from bad to worse to worst case scenario, and we learned that she would not be teaching in Manteca in the new school year. Bills were still piling up. Due to a bureaucratic screwup between California and Florida, I couldn’t drive: some old fix-it tickets in Florida were coming up in California as points against my license, driving our car insurance through the roof. All we could do is take me off the policy and out of the drivers seat until the points rolled off.

There were only two rays of sunshine for us in those months: we still had each other, and our niece Natalie was born.

Then there was summer. Kristi went to work nights at the cannery, including a two-month stretch without a day off. We hardly saw each other for three months. New client traffic in the business was virtually nonexistent. Relationships in my own family reached a breaking point. By August, we were both exhausted and shellshocked. When fall came around, the last of Kristi’s Manteca paychecks came and went; now we were holding things together with business income and her unemployment. And say good morning to a new COBRA bill.

But things finally started to turn around in October. My brother Chris left Florida for Oregon; we drove up to help him unpack. Natalie began crawling around. While we were still pretty low on new clients, we had managed to get regular work from two or three reliables, and so managed to keep the bills paid and the lights on. Kristi was long off the night shift, and we were busy reconstituting our own suffering relationship. Stress was easing up; it wasn’t any one thing you could put your finger on, but we just started to feel like things were getting better. Business was getting better. Life was getting better.

November and December have been a whirlwind. A big website project for the church turned into a bigger website project for the local Salvation Army, which itself turned into some cool work for Aaron Draper. Kristi jumped into web design headfirst and found she enjoys it. Her migraines have gone away almost entirely. Chris is settling in Oregon, loving it, and doing well. Our friend Em back in Orlando was finally attending to her health, taking steps to cut her own stress; the medical fear we’ve all been harboring in 2009 about her hadn’t come to pass. A Christmas season normally centered around food and presents and such was this year centered around work, contributing to the community, and family togetherness. New clients appeared just before Christmas, and one very old client showed up with a big project – and the promise of a hefty deposit check. And Natalie began to walk.

Last night I sat down here in the office to write the monthly checks to pay our tall stack of bills. I’ve come to dread this time of the month; all year it’s the time to face the reality of the situation, and the reality in 2009 hasn’t been awesome. But as I finished and tallied up the numbers, I turned to Kristi. We still have cash in the bank. We somehow managed, with only a small handful of remaining clients, to bring in 25% more business income than in 2008. And it was enough: we did it. I slowly lowered my hand down on the stack of stamped envelopes and closed my eyes. We’ve officially gotten through this nasty bitch of a year. We made it.

Tonight we plan to spend New Year’s Eve at a party with her parents and people we all know from church. Then we have a relaxing weekend, and get back to work next week for what looks to be an action-packed first quarter.

Kristi’s fond of reminding me that faithfulness is rewarded, and that we’ve been faithful. I’m the cynic in our relationship, looking around corners and preparing for – and usually fully expecting – the worst to pass. But even I must say that we’ve been living on faith this year. And faith indeed got us through.

Happy New Year, folks. May 2010 be a fresh start, a year of opportunity, a time of rewarded faithfulness. After 2009, I think we’ve all earned it.

Merry Christmas, everyone. We hope that wherever you are, you’re having a good one.