How 2018 went?

26 December, year by year, I write and speak to my mother who died about 60 years ago. Most of the time, I also buy her Cyclamens, the flowers she asked me when I was 26, the last year before she was operated and died.

It took me then six month to realize my loss, and begin to cry. Crying did not help much. Writing to her in my diary, year by year does. I tell her what I know she would have liked to hear, all the accomplishments I had, all the good things that happened me during the year. She lived almost through me, wanted to know all to the tiniest details. 

It is difficult to live with someone listening so much, it is difficult for that to not have it later.  

Let me try to tell here, for you, this time, what happened to me this year 2018. A lot happened! I still live alone, in a quiet apartment on the top floor without elevator. My broken let still bothers me, and my health did not improve a lot. Most important, I can live alone! I can care for myself and what I need. I am using, mostly my head, but I still bring myself breakfast in bed, and lunch, often in the living room, near my computer. 

From January to December 2018, I offered 15 awards to many different clubs as they needed. From Level 1 of Dynamic Leadership in January to the remote access DTM Masters, Virginia, then to Yakina Toastmasters in Oragon. In March, after launch d91, to Lewisham Club in London, and another launch in May to Witty Storytellers Online. These last two were finished in Base Camp long time before, waiting for the districts of the clubs to be launched. Later, an award to Firebirds Collective and one to Global Trainers Online clubs, when I felt they needed a nudge. My Distinguished Toastmaster went of course to my Witty Storytellers.

With 15 awards this year, I could have had a few triple crowns, I did not get, at least in my hands as I was never present at the District meeting, as my awards were in four different Districts. Here is a triple crown, I asked to be send, I got a digital copy of one of it. It is enough for me to see and know I did deserve them.

Before Pathways, I did not even dream to get a triple crown, I got in all 14 Awards from 2009 to end 2016, never three in one Toastmaster year.

But awards? Would really my mother be interested in them? I do not think she would have been a lot. 

More interested in the projects I completed and what I learned from them, with the wonderful people I met during the year, with the efforts it took me to be, first Pathways Ambassador and visit 10 clubs in three Areas in February, then Pathways Guide and go so far, online as Kenya and Tunis. And get 100% Pathways involvement in Witty Storytellers Online, as we were all dual, at least, already before the launch in district U. I got to know also wonderful other Guides and hear their stories while we went all over the world in special places where they are not yet Districts. 

She would have enjoyed hearing stories I learned, people I met through the Facebook group Pathways Discussion Forum. Most of all, as she was the one offering my first diary and always encouraged my writing, she would have enjoyed me telling her with detail about this blog. What I write about, who comes to visit and lives comments, from what part of world and through what different devices. And that so far, I had almost 100,000 visits, from May last year. How much joy, writing day to day brings me.