Happy New Year
Tonight is a night of celebration! A night to say “goodbye” to 2009 and “hello” to the potential of a new year.
Through our drunken hazes many of us will be making resolutions for 2010. If our heads are in the toilet our resolutions will likely be to stop drinking. If we find ourselves next to someone who’s name escapes us perhaps the resolution will be to make better decisions. All joking aside, this is the time of year where hopeful hearts resolve to make a change.
I am one of the hopeful. In the past I’ve hoped for the normal stuff: greater income, better physical shape, giving more back to society, taking myself less seriously, etc. All are well and good but I realize that my income has stayed pretty constant and my physical shape is being beaten down by a thing called “gravity” which I can only fight so hard against.
What if I threw those resolutions out the window?
What if, as the sun comes up tomorrow morning, I instead resolve to be happy?
Sounds easy, sounds, perhaps, stupid, but, what if?
This morning I looked at my diary entry from last year and this is what it said:
I never thought I’d be one of those people who, upon reflection during the holiday season, would say “this was the worst year ever”. Yet, here I am, end of December, Christmas plans piling up, carols playing on the radio and me sitting alone at my computer saying “this was the worst year ever”.
I guess the year just didn’t start off on the right foot. I’m pretty sure I slept through the ringing in of the new year…or at least went to bed right after. A few weeks later I was standing awkwardly at the foot of my grandmother’s hospital bed watching my father and his estranged brother trying to get a long while their mother took her last breath. At work I was quickly becoming disillusioned and disgruntled as the dark, hidden truth of the charity that I had given my heart to came slowly in to the light.
After a life altering missions trip, I came back to a world that I didn’t recognize and things just quickly started to unravel. I left my job, my favourite uncle attempted suicide 3 times in one week and the week I decided to start therapy to deal with my demons my husband declares he is in love with another woman. In the midst of all of this, my mother is slowly deteriorating from the cancer that has used her body as an amusement park for four years.
So, with all of that I believe I am rightfully entitled to declare this “the worse year ever”.
Reading those words I don’t really recognize that person in me anymore. I do remember her but I’ve thankfully somehow moved on from that point of despair.
Sure, life gets me down still. Mom is not getting better, Grandpa is days away from moving to his eternal home, divorce is around the corner and there are days I feel something vital is missing from my soul. Still, I don’t despair over the last year. It’s been a year of growth. Ups and downs and everything in between. How can we despair over the unfortunate circumstances when we learn and grow from it?
So this year, on this special day, I will resolve simply to be happy. Life’s circumstances may knock me around but I’m going to be happy because I know, in the end I am better for it!
I wish you all the love, hope and joy that comes with the turning of the year. May you find what you are looking for.
Happy Happy New Year!
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