This was to be my 2015 Holiday Brag Letter.

You know, that compendium of the years successes, described in a humble/brag style.

But my wit seems to have escaped me.

In all reality, this year sucked.

2015 was a year of pain, frustration, failure, and heartbreak. Friends and family have passed on. Relationships have dissolved.

There has been one positive thing given to me this year. The opportunity to finally learn who I am.

You see, I have been in a relationship, be it a marriage or a dating situation since 1980. I have had small periods of being single, but I have never taken the time to learn who I really am.

I now have that opportunity.

Those of you who are in long-term, committed relationships don’t know this…but for those of us who are coming out of relationships the conventional thinking goes that we should not date for a year. The thinking is that you need to heal from that last breakup before you are going to be capable of participating fully in a new relationship.

It is a hard when you come to the realization that you have lost your sense of yourself. When the simplest decisions make you stop as you weigh the options. All because you just don’t know what you really want because there was always someone else to consider in the equation.

And please don’t read that last couple of sentences thinking that I have always deferred to the person I was with. Believe me, I have not. I am not a door mat. And neither have my partners been demanding. They have not. They have all been wonderful women who I have failed with my inability to know how to be in a relationship. With not haven taken the time to heal from one before going into another….taking all the baggage with me.

You have heard the saying, “He has more baggage than a Samsonite store.”

Yeah. That would be me.

So let the learning begin….well, it has already begun.

Here’s to me learning more about me.