Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
Hal Borland
Despite what you might think, all the hype about creating a new year’s resolution is baloney.
For myself as a widow, every day is living a resolution that has been forced upon me to accept regardless of my feverish resistance. Everything about the new year of the Gregorian calendar is a real breathing-down-my-neck ‘New, New, New’, at a time when all I want is ‘Old, Old, Old’.
Old hugs, old snuggling, old annoyances, old kisses, old memories, old any old kind of moment vs. new perspectives, new fears, new bills, new people, new acceptance……. new everything it seems. It’s not easy seeing everyone excited about the ‘new’ because I know better than most what all that ‘new’ means.
It means shifting, changing, reanalyzing, molting, transforming mixed with unbounded discipline and steady diligence. It always means deciding to look into the mirror and asking ‘What’s Next’ and ‘What’s Possible’ then analyzing it all to the point that spins into more exhaustive indecision. It means asking who I am now with this ‘new year’ without them.
Another year to play hide and seek with the shattered pieces of my life’s puzzle in the making of this ‘New Me’ vision you keep telling me to get on with. Another year to find answers that bring on more questions for me to……Well, you guessed it, answer.
For me, January 1st means I’ve made it another day unbroken, unwilling to be the victim in this, to find the better, not the bitter. Every breath inhales and exhales both of awareness and choice becoming the moment the Times Square ball drops or the bell tower rings at midnight.
The clarity of that bell rings truth to me to become the seeker of purpose and meaning for a whole life, not just for a year. New Years Eve has become a shallow, hyped up, publicized event as just another excuse to throw a big party to celebrate future broken promises, wearing silly paper hats and throwing confetti. Just not buying it anymore. I crave the substance now.
Instead, this moment becomes a profound choice with my whole body, conscious mind and unbridled spirit to commit my life to something significant and lasting: Like finally knowing myself, new and old unconstrained, leaning into this deepness of bold, amazing beauty that is me, that is both whole and holy.
No matter how I slice it, when that Times Square ball drops and the new year rolls into the future making it history and bidding us to say goodbye, I will turn directly to say hello and face the fresh new year equally willing as you to either own my promises or once again, disown my promises.
No hype, No confetti, No hat: Just me, my heart, my thoughts, my belief in radical humanity and powerful, empowering love. That my friend is something I can and will celebrate with you. Now that’s a resolution we can all make a reality.
Tick tock.
