And another Kosack is added to the growing chorus of incredibly touched, grateful, introspective and a tad incredulous people across the USA and beyond (in my case, I'm a Brit who finds American politics and society nigh-on unbearably fascinating) who have been touched by the phenomenal generosity of the members of this incredible community!
I had wanted to post something yesterday when I realised that I had been gifted, however, my all-but mother-in-law had flown my long-term partner and I over to Germany (from the UK) for Christmas and we arrived back late last night. There are so many people to thank, from Onomastic for, I believe, inspiring the drive, Dr Erich Bloodaxe RN, Nurse Kelly and so many others for putting so much hard work into the drive itself, the lovely Yasuragi for nominating me and tmservo433 for taking the absurdly lovely step of gifting me a lifetime subscription despite our not really knowing each other. To say that I am astounded would be understatement of truly epic proportions.
I wish that I had the resources to pass this on and buy someone else a subscription, but alas, that is pretty much impossible for me. I really, really shouldn't even do this on a financial front, but I simply cannot receive this largess without paying a little of it forward, so I'm going to chip in $10 to the small-donor drive.
If there's anyone else out there who thinks that they may be able to dig a few bucks out from the figurative creases of the figurative couch even in these difficult financial times, know that it will be massively appreciated; as has been said by many others here, I do not technically need a subscription – my PC is distinctly old but is still able to handle DK, ads and all, relatively well, as long as I don't open 15 tabs at a time as I am wont to do! Between my having mentioned this and that others might benefit from/deserve being gifted more than I when I first realised that I'd been nominated and that I haven't ever been incredibly active on the site and particularly over the past year, I wasn't expecting anything to come of it in my case.
Unfortunately my not being around much has not been on account of technical or even my not-great financial circumstances - earlier in the year my partner of 8 years attempted to kill herself. Technically speaking I suppose that she kind-of succeeded for a few minutes before I got home and found out that I remembered enough of the first-aid course I took a long time ago (and, seriously, I cannot recommend strongly enough to take such a course if one has the opportunity to do so - never know when it'll turn out to be needed!) to get her breathing again. Unfortunately, as she had been gone a while, she stayed in a coma in ICU for a few days and then experienced hypoxia-related psych symptoms for another week or two which required that she be transferred to an inpatient psych-unit (moreover, a miserable excuse for one), where she actually ended up staying another month or so, due to the underlying psych issues which led to the situation. Since she was discharged she has been thankfully fast-tracked onto an exceptionally good specialist service and seems to be making good, though obviously gradual, progress.
At first all the time at the hospitals obviously kept me mostly offline and then having a bit of a downswing with my own depression/anxiety issues once the immediate crisis had passed somewhat meant that I haven't felt up to interacting much on DK or elsewhere. However, things seem to be getting gradually better on that front as well recently.
Consequently it was a particularly lovely and uplifting surprise to see the notification sitting in my inbox and I hope that this will act as impetus to spur me on to get back to interacting with this lovely community a bit more frequently in the future, albeit, I suspect, gradually, even if I shall never be one of those many-worthwhile-diaries-a-day folk I admire.
As incredible as this is, it is only one small example of the stunning community here - from getting political achievements made, candidate drives, thoughtful and compassionate analysis of news and politics, community quilts, personal advice, social clubs and incredibly diverse, active, thoughtful and inclusive community family! Thank you and I have always been proud and humbled to be a member of that family, but especially today - I may not be around to reply to comments, given the whole New Year's Eve thingy (a hour left in the UK, so Happy New Year to all of you in advance,) but please do not mistake this for not caring! ♥