Fast Forward to Beginning

I chose this oxymoron on purpose: a new year is here, how did that happen so fast? It is painfully apparent that blogging has been non existent. I was unable to keep my daily juggling act in proper order, since two more units were thrown into the sequence and it all fell apart. My mother came for a long and enjoyable stay and I have been sick, sick, sick ~ and frankly I am sick of that. The sad thing is, that as soon as life is going out of order, the things that are important just for and to oneself are the first being thrown onto a back burner. I had really started to enjoy writing, even knowing that maybe nobody actually reads it.

So here we are on the first night of the new year and I just wanted to check my email before getting comfortable in bed and proceeding with 'Marley & Me' - a very enjoyable read. And then it occurred to me that this new day in this new year is a perfect opportunity to tempt the blogosphere again, because it feels different this year. I have to explain this.

Since being a child I have not been particularly fond of New Year's for several reasons. I loved parties and I loved fireworks, so that is the perfect combination to love those festivities, but when I was a little girl, I had to sleep while the adults partied and conveniently forgot to get me at midnight for the fireworks. Parties were unusual though for that night as my mother always had the blues at the turning point of the years. Staying at my grandmother was not what I would define as a fun evening either, she did not care to celebrate the new year and just went to bed after eating the obligatory New Year's eve jelly donut. I remember being seven years old and being strapped into a body brace to correct a badly jointed fracture and my grandmother refused to come and get me out so I can see some fireworks.

Other midnight celebrations would have my uncle trying to scare the living daylights out of me with extremely loud but not the least visually pleasing fireworks. And then there was the year I was standing with probably about one thousand people looking at fireworks and my disposition to be singled out shone when I was the only one getting hit by a rocket (which thankfully had mostly burned off).

My relationship to a new year has rarely been friendly, usually I hate the beginning of the year, as it is so new, blank, has no character, I miss the old year and dislike the transition. And this year, this transition, how does that feel? That is the strange thing, it feels so different and I am looking forward to this new year, I am happy it is blank and new. It appears like this big white freshly stretched canvas, waiting to be painted in all sorts of colors or maybe even just a few. I feel that this year will bring good things and will let me grow into directions that I could not before and that the past year, that have not been that good, are the roots for something good to come. It feels like I am pushing through some darkness and I still have some pushing to do, but that there is going to be a light waiting for me - not by a miracle, but by me making sure that there will be and creating opportunity for such light.

Happy New Year!