Pondering the new year

It's January 4th, and I've been quietly pondering the new year for a few days. The taking down of one calendar and putting up of another, the ensuing struggle to remember to write the right year in the date... it's all a part of this new beginning.

(Which is funny to me really...because right now, speaking from a purely natural and personal view point, this feels like death, like the end, not the beginning...the cold and the dark and the wind and the bleak and the dreary...if I ruled the world, I'm pretty sure the new year would start in spring...but that is another story...)

Some people make new years resolutions. I have done that before, and I don't think I have a single one that ever stuck. "This year" you know, the one where I was going to be skinny by summer, yeah, it never came. Or it disappeared, or something... I'm trying to think of what else I might have ever made resolutions about, and the sad fact may very well be that weight is the only thing I have ever felt the need to resolve (in this sense).

Looking out at this year I realize a few things-

• I will be turning 28 this year. For some of you that seems so young, for others, so old, and for still more, so familiar.
• I will officially have been part of the work force, a person who supports herself for 5 years. That seems a short time even to me. And yet...look what's behind me in those 5 years! Whew.
• This year could bring a lot of long-awaited change in my life. I have already had several inquisitive minds wanting to know...and no, I'm not pregnant...the changes I'm talking about concern the official status of my relationship as well as the location of my relationship/life. These are the things I'm hoping for a change in.

I don't know what these things mean, if they mean anything. They are ways to mark the passage of time I suppose...and of course, there is all that societal/cultural drama/expectation that goes along with these markers of the passage of time.

On new years eve I was amongst friends and loved ones, and we created visual representations of what we resolve or intend (or it seemed in some cases fear) in the new year. I chose to make mine more about intentions rather than resolutions.

What I intended most of all was lots of love...not just romantic love. I have plenty of that, and while I can always go for more, I do not see a lacking there. What I'm talking about is love that come from the inside out, from the outside in, no matter where, no matter when, no matter who I'm with. The funny thing about this kind of love is that for as much as my spiritual beliefs dictate that I already am surrounded by this stuff, that everywhere I go it is there already, I don't seem to feel it, or I ignore it, maybe even push it away.

What I intend for the new year, is to feel this love, to be aware of it, to not push it away, to receive it and most importantly to accept it, believe in it, and honor it. What I intend is that I fake it until I make it, do the outside-in thing until the inside-out thing happens naturally.

I've heard lots of women (specifically) say that their 20s were the hardest time... that they were trying, tumultuous times when figuring out who they were and what they were meant to be doing was a herculean task. When feeling good about one's self, when feeling confident was hard-won.

I start to wonder if it's the new year, or if it's the fact that I'm nearing the end of my 20s that is bringing on my current ponderings. I have to admit that while my early 20s seem light-years away, in a way, I kind of feel like I've just gotten crazier the older I've gotten. Sure, there are some things I've worked out. There are plenty other that I haven't and maybe even some (one?) that have gotten worse.

I know that I want to be able to wake up in the morning, single or married, with child or without, in Latvia or somewhere sunnier and warmer, and feel happy and loved and content and confident. This I know. How to get there to that elusive place, is as of now, still unknown to me. But this is my intention for this 28th year of my life...to get closer. And what's more, not only to do that, but to keep it more than the first few weeks of January (when most resolutions die...), more than even the first few months, into next year even, and the year after that, and ever more.

In a few short, short days I will go back to work, and between reports and my class and everything else, all of these thoughts might go flying out the window. That would make this a resolution. I hope that my intention will not fly away. Maybe this requires some sort of structure, some sort of reminders. I'll look into that. If my new year has to start now, then let it be out of this cold, dark, dead place, that something wonderful, and hopeful and love-ly grows. Let this be the year of love.






And maybe, just maybe, if love makes weight melt off...that would be ok too. This could be, "THE" year. :) (you know I had to slip that in...)