2019

2019 was announced with a bang last Monday night , my neighbors set off a volley of fireworks at the stroke of midnight to mark its arrival. Inside my house a Chesapeake Bay Retriever leapt onto the couch and hid his face in my armpit – he obviously feeling as confident about the upcoming year as I.  

I’ve been waiting impatiently for 2018 to come to an end, waiting for the symbolic closure of a year from hell.  As the the fireworks fizzled and the dog settled down, I sat in my quiet family room and waited for the anticipated change 2019 was supposed to bring.  I’m still waiting.

It was hopeful and naive to think a new calendar year would make a difference to the way I’ve been feeling or to the way my tomorrows will unfold. 2018 has marked me like a brand, I am scarred, and nothing can change that. I will take those scars into all the new years of the future and that is just a fact.  

I wasn’t expecting the curtain to rise and angels to herald the new year, I think I was hoping for a sense of closure, a clean slate on which to write about the rest of my life.  What I got was a sense of resolve;  this is me, this is it.  My life is far from settled right now. 

The upcoming year will be full of changes and challenges.  I have to plan a move and clear out the clutter of things I’ve had a hard time parting with.  I have to get ruthless with myself and my baggage. I have to down size.  I have to do this because I have to, not because I choose to. What I can choose is the ‘how’ I do it, optimistically or clinging to the past. The deeper I dig my heels in the harder the changes will be.  I need to lean into the challenges that I’m facing and open my arms to possibilities.  

It has taken me almost a week to let the new year through the door. Now that it’s here, it is welcome. Onward.