Beginnings

It's a new year. But, unlike some people, I don't see it as a saving grace. New years shouldn't be a last-ditch effort to forget the past year and start anew. Because that's not really healthy, is it?

I'm excited for this to be a new year. But not because it's different than the last. More like because it's a whole new section of my life that's now laid out in front of me.

Years are like journals. You have one, you use it all up, fill every page with thoughts and memories and occurrences. And then when you're all finished, you get a new one. That doesn't mean you have to go throw the old one into a bonfire, or read back over it and cry until the words are no longer discernible. It just means that you have a whole journal full of blank pages to fill as a continuation of the last one.

I don't really know if anything new will happen in this next year. It may not be all that exciting or big, and it may just be little things. Little changes, like in years past. I might find a new way of looking at something, or discover a great new hobby or unearth a talent that I never knew existed. Even if they're not huge, I'm sure the pages of this year's journal will be filled with new little accomplishments and anecdotes and discoveries.

And while I've never been huge on making New Year's resolutions, I've decided that this year I'm just going to shift my thinking. It's not really a resolution, because it's not a finite goal that you can write down on a piece of paper with a box next to it, to be filled with a check when the it has been accomplished.

I just want to start thinking more freely. The best things about life are the ones that aren't planned or plotted or conspired. I just need to open up my thoughts to the winds of fate, and let them take me wherever they decide I should be.

But I'll be sure to leave my umbrella and wide brimmed hat at home. Wouldn't want to get swept away, now would we?