A time of anniversaries

Three years ago, on June 2nd, my uncle Jorge passed away in his sleep. The next year, my father, after a lengthy illness, passed away on June 1st. Last year on May 31st, my friend Tracy died three weeks after discovering she had cancer. To say that it was rough couple of years would be an understatement.
However, since that time my life has changed dramatically for the better. Shortly after Tracy died, I left my long-time, well-paying job, my community of friends and acquaintances, and took a big leap into the unknown by moving away from Eugene and back down to Roseburg (both in Oregon) to start my life all over. It was a scary move, leaving all of that behind to move, at age 36, back in with my Mom.
I needed to get the hell away from all the pain and chaos that Eugene had come to represent in my life, needed to move away from city life to return to the country and small-town life. All I really wanted at that point was to sit by the creek on my Mom's property and decompress for awhile. But it was scary as hell taking that leap. What would I do for a job? Would I return to climbing more regularly? A major part of wanting to move was to start mountaineering and rock-climbing more regularly, something that had slipped away from me with all my various responsibilities as Manager of Sweet Life, as my daughters full-time Dad.
As it turns out now, nearly one year from moving, it was one of the best moves of my life. I got a job my first day back in town, back at While-Away books, the job I had had before I had moved to Eugene (this is in a town whose unemployment rate is close to double that of the national average). I climbed Mt Thielsen (my very first ascent) a week after coming to town, and ended up climbing ten mountains that summer. Ten days after my last ascent of the season, I had my first date with Brook, a co-worker from the bookstore. It was September 26th, a full-moon night, and needless to say, our date went very well and we now live together and will celebrate eight months together tomorrow.
And now I am an assistant rock-climbing instructor at the local community college, and will be enrolling in the outdoor program at the same college in the fall. I know what I want to do - teach climbing and outdoor skills. It's all coming together.
I decided to write about all this because it is coming up on those infamous anniversaries I mentioned earlier, and, well, it's just really on my mind right now. I am really glad I made the decision. Sometime you just have to take that leap of faith.