January 2, 2018 – Tuesday
Happy New Year… 2018!
It is once again a new year … time to get out our erasers and wipe our slates clean … turn the proverbial page … make a fresh start.
Or as Dr. Seuss said, ‘You’re off to great places, Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!’
365 days of newness … well, because I’m writing this on the 2nd, 363 days of newness! How exciting is that?! Oh, the possibilities! The adventures! The enlightenment, knowledge and wonder that await us!
I’ve never been good at resolutions. They seem too confining. I like the broad general ones… like, GET HEALTHIER instead of the ones that demand I lose 40 lbs in X amount of time – cuz unless I’m amputating something, that ain’t happening! I’m a short term wonder. I can do anything for a small amount of time. So, my thoughts lean towards increasing activity and veggie consumption for the next month. It won’t make me drop those 40# I’d like to instantly… but it’ll get me on the path to getting healthier. And then the next month, I can change things up a bit and continue down that path. So, that is Plan A.
Plan B is to sit on my chaise and eat bonbons until Valentine’s Day.
Let’s just hope I stick with the first one!
I spent a much-too-quiet NYE by myself this year. I’m not much on celebratory gatherings on that night anyway… too many drunken lunatics out and about and why tempt fate? So, I made myself a nice appetizer plate and watched some of New Year’s Rockin’ Eve (as much as I could get being on the west coast) and was glad I was warm and snug surrounded by peacefully snoring dogs and not wearing a diaper in the record-breaking cold of NY’s Times Square. I saw the ball drop just fine, thank you… and I didn’t have to get frost bite and wet my pants to do so.
I sat and looked at the critters around me and thanked each one, as they slept, for the joy they have and do bring to my life. Somewhere in my heart I knew they wouldn’t be around for whatever next year’s celebration may be. They are getting old and their bodies, large and small, are giving out.
What now seems like a zillion years ago, Tim and I got this idea that we’d spend NYE at some posh party at a local hotel and spend the night. The kids were little so it was a good 20 some years ago. It was the fanciest New Year’s Eve we ever had and probably the fanciest party we’d ever been to. I wore a dreamy vintage strapless, raspberry colored, taffeta ball gown. It was my mom’s dress. I have one photo of her in it when she was apparently the size of a fetus. Perhaps her first Christmas with my dad… 1950? I somehow fit into it (apparently also being the size of a fetus at that time) and there is nothing more delicious than swirling around a grand ballroom in such a gown… especially when my normal day-to-day attire consisted of stretch pants (probably with stirrups!), a stretched out sweater (with a baby formula or some sort of stain on it) and gym shoes that probably had a bit of dog poop wedged in the tread from being out in the yard. (Hence, the no shoe policy in my house!) In any case, that was a lovely and most memorable evening.
I was the youngest of three kids in our house and my folks had a very large group of friends. So, on those New Year’s Eves of yore, my siblings were off with friends and I was flying solo while my folks held NYE parties in the basement. I loved those nights! I would help my mom cart plate after plate of food down to the serving counter and I’d get to say hi to everyone and I loved the chatter and laughter that would waft up the stairs. Oh, early 1960’s were so fun! I’d be watching TV in the living room, stuffing my past-bedtime face with pizza rolls and french onion dip. If I wanted to get an extra earful, I’d open the hall closet and while lying on my stomach I’d wedge my head into the laundry chute. The hole in the basement ceiling was right where all the “action” was and sometimes I’d hear (a bit clearer) something that should have been off-limits to my innocent little ears! Thrilling!
Those were GOOD New Years.
The year following Tim’s passing, New Year’s 2007, was the roughest one I’ve had. I am a numbers person… always counting… and the stroke of midnight not only brought a new year but profound sadness. Tim had been gone since late July the previous summer (158 days to be exact… 10 more days than from his diagnosis to passing) but knowing that the new year brought a year without him in it – at all – was devastating. My heart shattered all over again and the thought of facing a new year without him was practically unbearable. Thinking that you’d feel better if a steam roller had run you over is never a good thing. With the last stroke of midnight a year without my love began and the 27 years (nearly 10,000 days with him in my life) faded into the past. I’d no longer have a new year’s kiss from him. I’d no longer have a year in which he’d be a part. It was all no longer.
That was the BAD New Years.
Last year, I was shaking my can of Barbasol as the clock hands crept towards midnight and as the clock struck twelve ringing in 2017, I was looking more like Mr. Clean than Mr. Clean himself. Bald as a cue ball. My babies had more hair than I did… and that’s not saying much cuz they were bald until they were two! I shaved my head in a quest for understanding… to gain empathy and compassion. And yes, it did the trick. Hair is a funny thing. I always thought it was just an “accessory” but until you don’t have it, you really don’t realize that it is so much more. After a year of letting my hair grow out (and I say “grow out” lightly because it’s still not to the nape of my neck!) I look back and realize what a number (not having hair) did on my psyche! Talk about feeling badly about oneself! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yeah… but even with a well-tied scarf around my head that actually enhanced my appearance better than any mouse-brown hair would, I still felt god awful, frumpy, fat, blah and just badly.
That was the UGLY New Years.
And so, here we are… 2018. I look forward, as I hope you are doing as well, and think anything is possible. There is so much to grasp, to see, to do! Life is short… we all need to go after it. So, here’s to the next 363 days… make them wonderful. Make the most of them. Enjoy the hell out of them.
‘You are off to great places, Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!’
Happy New Year!