2016.
Seriously?
Seriously.
There's something about the turning of the year from old to new that makes me want to reinvent myself. Throw all the furniture out and start again. Dust myself off. Lose 40 lbs. Clean my desk and only have the pretty show and not the fragments of notebook paper with important scribbles on them. Roll the dice again because the other roll didn't count. Eat more vegetables. And like them. Change.
Do you feel this way too? Just nod. It's ok. Maybe you want to eat more donuts and not kale but really, what is it? I love absolutely love love LOVE New Year's Eve. The magic of it. The je ne sais pas of it. The unknown that is waiting when the clock strikes midnight and that brand new year is ready to land on the childhood see-saw where you're sitting, holding on tight ... and it propels you, with force, up, into it the air, like a balloon floating, where you don't know where you'll drop, till you get there. Maybe in March you'll have it figured out. Maybe October. Maybe much later.
So it's January 5th. Already! Time waits for no one. In the four fresh new days of this year, I've tidied the house quite a bit, decided (again) that I want my kitchen to be like the pages of my Pinterest board, gone back to the gym (again), and made up my mind (again) that every cozy nook be fashioned and on the ready for when my knitting and reading moods strike. I've played musical chairs with the curtains (and washed them!) and given them new homes around the house for a change and by golly, they look better than they did where they were before. Imagine that! A fresh outlook. A change.
Maybe your change is something more solid. Mine is really the same, only different, every year. Because at some point during the long span of 12 months, that seems forever but goes by so fast, everything gets mired down, tattered, dusty, and confused. Good, wonderful things happen too but that blank page at the beginning of January is now busting with stuff, sad times too. At some point I throw in the towel and cave. After all, a new year will be coming soon enough and I can do it all over again.
But why? There's something about the new year that makes me want to go back, yet go forward. I am a very, VERY, sentimental soul. My boys are now ages 8 and 16 and well, it's just depressing when I think too hard about them getting older. Not that I'm getting older. That's another worry in itself. But that I birthed these precious little babies who are walking around the planet doing things, having their own lives already, and I'm still wishing they would just sit in the high chair and count cheerios with me again. I know, I know. It's all relative. When they're married and off in their own houses with pillows thrown off the couches, chairs askew, and laundry piling up, and video games sitting around out of their cases ... I'll wish they would just be here, again, leaving legos on the floor and telling me about their school day after I've asked four times.
I'm only human. I can't be so hard on myself. We're all going through this life of ours. Alone. Together. We each have our own story, our own childhood we came from, our own fires that light us, and our own voices that speak in a language we know so well.
I think the new year is a time to pause and reflect, yes. But it's also a time to just be. Be you. You are you no matter the season, the date. Sure we all grow up (even me, though I act like I'm 5) and have different chapters in our lives: some serious, some crazy, some embarrassing, some memorable, some we want to erase, some hilarious, some hard, some beyond fabulous. Last year I was me. This year I will be me. You? Ditto. Perhaps in January, it's not that I want to reinvent the wheel, just polish it up a bit. Nothing wrong with that! I say Pish Posh! to resolutions ... don't make them. Rather I believe it's OK to have goals, plans, and change things up because that's healthy. The same old thing over and over is boring. For me.
Life is a journey. It has twisting roads and at times, many times, too many times you may want in fact, it has paths that make you lose your footing. Yet get back up. Ride that horse again. Dust yourself off. Make plans. Rearrange the house as you wish. Be you. You are pretty cool.
Happy New Year,
Tanya
