First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and moulding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
—Anais Nin

It’s been one hell of a ride, these last five years in my life. I’ve come a long long way. I’ve found and lost love, experienced a number of firsts, completed goals I have only dreamed of completing, and have gained three amazing new little people in my life.

The year 2014 was equal parts challenging and painful/rewarding and character-building.

I embarked on a long-harboured wish of starting a blog and, through this act, I have discovered several amazing and inspiring writers and bloggers along the way.

I am here to write the expected Happy 2015 post, like most every other blogger has, but I kind of shrink away from the predictability of the act. I want to say something positive, but I can’t just rely on this particular marker of an occasion to find my courage and my positivity.

Here is a post from one of those writer/bloggers I’ve discovered. I was lucky to get to interview her,

here last fall (Spotlight On Saltz),

and she taught me a lot about writing and creativity.

This, most recent post from her is real and honest, less brimming with platitudinal statements for a year none of us can say for certain will be any better than the last.

Alana Saltz: My Only New Year’s Resolution

I realize the above example and mine here aren’t the most resoundingly cheery of them all, but I have to mark the start of this new year, while still remaining the lovely mixture glass-half-full/glass-half-empty I always am.

My sister and I sat talking, during a quiet moment last night, at a house party we were at. We discussed how January 1st isn’t really all that different from December 1st before it or February 1st still to come. It may have all the bells and whistles of a ball dropping in Time Square, but it does not mean any of us must celebrate something we don’t feel or declare anything we probably won’t find worth keeping up in the days and weeks and months to follow.

This can be illustrated by the annual kiss at the stroke of midnight. This was preceded by the Christmas kiss under the mistletoe and the gushy hearts, flowers, and chocolates of Valentine’s Day next month.

These things are arbitrary markers of these winter celebrations. I think they are all nice and everything, but my sister and I are not showy people and I believe we both would prefer to kiss someone, the right someone…be it a husband or a partner, at the time of our choosing and in a not quite so public or posed circumstance.

I have never made a resolution come January 1st: to lose weight, cease a bad habit, or whatever else might make the top ten list of most popular New Year’s resolutions. I am constantly at work on myself and my life. I struggle, sometimes daily, to get through life and to achieve the things most people take for granted.

I didn’t want to wait for the start of a new calendar year to tell me when I should begin working on my life and my dreams. I did not start this blog last January, but let inspiration take hold when it might.

I love such things, but on my own terms. I felt that my 30th birthday was the right time to start a blog and to make writing a priority in my life and this meant starting these things one month and ten days after the start of the 2014 year.

Now the count-down has gone and the party is over, as they say. The often long and cold month of January begins today. That’s all I know at this moment.

I don’t know what I will achieve in the twelve months looming ahead. Yes, I say looming because it feels that way, as of this New Year’s Day night. It feels big and weighty and daunting.

I suppose, if I were to settle on a resolution of any kind, it would have to be to find more contentment and pride in myself and my life and less focus on envy of what someone else has. All I can say is that I am glad the previous twelve months happened and I have taken some significant steps forward since this time last year.

I started my writing blog, as I’ve already said. Plus, I discovered a community of like-minded people in the blogs I now follow, written by the unique voices I now look forward to reading.

I have lost things, yes, but I have gained the confidence to share this gift of writing I love so much with anyone who will take the time to read my words.

I have learned things about myself and a future I only hope I am lucky enough to experience. More to come on all this I am sure. I have a lot of ideas and I haven’t run out of things to say here.

I do look at the beginning of each year I have been given on this earth as a time of reflection, although all this I do every single day, December 31st or January 1st not just.

This year, like all the others before it, I will probably be faced with some difficult decisions and some splendid moments of hysterical laughter, pure joy, and eager anticipation.

I hope to try new things and live life like this could be my last year alive, because the truth is that none of us truly know which year could very well be our best, worst, or last. I have only learned that years are precious commodities and that when they are wasted it is a true shame.

So there you have it: my welcome to 2015 first blog post of the year, but really it’s just another day…the first day of the rest of my life and yours too. I guess we’ll just see what I have to say in one year’s time and where we all find ourselves when 2016 rolls around.

Until that day …

Cheers!

Winter Light, Tim Finn from The Chronicles of Narnia, YouTube