Goodbye, 2012. You were a pretty good year.
New Year’s Eve has always been a bittersweet event for me. I remain a creature of possibility. A hard, fast ending that involves a countdown followed by a melancholy tune rhetorically questioning if we should forgot the days that have gone by can reduce me to tears as I realize all that could have been won’t be. At least not this year. But then, poof, here comes 365 days of possibility, wonder, amazement. You can’t turn down a fresh start.
I’ve become a little more fluid in my thinking these days and have recognized possibilities and fresh starts are available almost any time or place, but it still feels good to demarcate the beginning and ending of 52 weeks. It makes it easier to look back and say things like, “That was the year my youngest son started school;” “That was the year my oldest son grew taller than me;” “That was the year I began to feel like if I put in the time and effort, I could really become a musician;” “That was that year I felt my life had come together and I became aware and amazed by how much love and beauty surrounds me.”
Actually I would never say that last sentence because it’s a little too New Age-y for me. One cannot thrive on the power of failure and fully embrace the positive affirmation. It seems to me positive affirmations are tossed around far too willy-nilly these days anyway, and often I sense there is a less than positive subtext beneath. In my cynical little blackened heart I feel that the much touted “I’m so blessed” Facebook status update translates into: “My life is soooo much better than yours.” Seriously, if Mother Theresa were alive and on Facebook she wouldn’t be posting how freakin’ blessed she is every 15 minutes! Get over yourselves, people! You’re trying too hard, and I’m pretty sure all those pictures of your family have been heavily retouched!
Ahem. I feel better now. But this does bring me to the obligatory list of New Year’s Resolution. My first resolution is to limit my Facebook time to one session per day (and preferably a session that lasts no more than 5 hours) or at the very least,to figure out how to turn off the status updates of the Facebook friends who annoy me. Beyond that, I should work on my self confidence, but then I realize I would never be able to do that, I just don’t have that kind of strength of character. So instead I have resolved to take up a bunch of low level bad habits (like not flossing twice a day or biting my nails) and then next year I can resolve to stop doing those things, which should be fairly easy to accomplish, thereby boosting my sense of self worth. Sometimes you have to look at the big picture with these resolutions. My final resolution is to have the mess from my New Year’s Eve party cleaned up by next New Year’s Eve.
Seriously though, I’m looking forward to a lot in 2013, including working on my second CD, playing music with the Debora Iyall Group (DIG for short), perhaps continuing a side project with my friend Pauli Gray, and of course spending lots of time with my kids who are growing up way faster than I thought possible.
For those of you who have stopped in and read my entries in 2012, thanks so much for reading. Hope you have a great 2013!
Some of my favorite gifts from this Holiday Season.
I often find I get the most work accomplished by setting out to do a task and, in avoidance of it, I end up doing another task I have put off. For instance, I seem to have written and recorded a lot of music because I really needed to clean my house. Even back when I was in college I found the best time for working on a long, involved term paper was when I was sitting in a lecture on another subject. In short, if you put me in a situation that requires me to do activity A, I will inevitably find a way to do activity B.
