Of endings and beginnings

Is it too late to say “Happy New Year”? Saying it anyway – and may your 2020 be filled with joy, love and the sort of challenges you truly thrive on.

My run-up to the new year was strange. Normally I spend some time rounding up the events of the past twelve months, thinking back on the things I’ve learned, great experiences and troublesome times, friends, family and new people, dreams dreamed and fears feared: all the stuff that makes up a life. But 2019 wasn’t like a ‘normal’ year and I couldn’t round it up. It began with us burying our mother and ended with the first Christmas without her, followed by the anniversary of her passing over. The months in-between were marked by the raw process of grieving, the practical things that had to be done in the wake of her death and us as a family cautiously trying to regroup, one sad first anniversary after another.

Instead of looking back over all of that, I had a strong urge to look forward. Which, in fact, is pretty much how Mum used to approach life’s ups and downs: What’s done is done – look to the future. Me, I’ve always spent a lot of my time worrying at things backwards, so to speak, analyzing and trying to understand and wondering what if. Astonishingly, this no longer appeals. With the last of the gut-wrenching first anniversaries behind me, it’s as though the thick layer of padding that kept me separate as I stumbled through the unfamiliar landscape of grief has started to melt away: What’s done is done… (thanks, Mum!)

Stepping into 2020, I feel a surge of energy: my word for the year is ‘reconfigure’ – meaning, to change the shape or formation of something, to remodel or restructure – and it has already started. I am reconfiguring and I’m loving it. That which I no longer need is dropping away and that which is authentically me is settling in nicely. Not so much “New Year – New Me” but rather “New Year – Truly Me” 🙂

Here’s to a whole year’s worth of conscious, joyful, intense, real & true, sometimes sad / sometimes happy living! Change happens anyway – might as well lean into it rather than shy away from it. I intend to say ‘yes’ more than ‘no’, I intend to create more than I consume, I intend to find things to be thankful for each and every day. And I intend to love hell out of life, every damn moment I’m on this crazy planet, starting right now!!

Image by Mr Taylor from Pixabay