The New Year

Every December 31, we dawn our heads with sparkly tiaras and watch the clock go tick tock until it strikes 12.

We put the past behind us and push onto what's ahead.  Forgetting the troubles of yesterday and moving toward what is fresh.

There's a sense of hope and anticipation, all things becoming new.

I purposely have been avoiding the topic of New Year's this year.  My New Year's eve was not spent within the most delightful of circumstances.

And instead of seeing this new year as a gift, it has felt somewhat bitter.

While I was still in an unknown oblivion as to what was to come for my New Year, I had a dream.

I was standing on top of a green hill, next to a wooden-sided house.  It was a big house.  I stood next to a large window.  My best friend growing up was standing next to me, propped up on a small porch that connected to the door of the house.  As I looked to my left, I saw the ocean.  I remembered that I had been to this place before.  I actually had a previous dream about this exact house, exact hill, and exact ocean.  I looked over my shoulder, and I noticed the tide start to roar.  As it started to climb up the hill I was standing on, I got progressively more nervous.  And, then, before I knew it, it was coming.  In my mind, I thought, "I'm not so sure I'm ready for this.  I don't really know about this."  But the tide came anyway.  Though I thought I may drown, instead, I learned the art of holding my breath as each wave came crashing over my head.

I've been thinking about this dream a lot the last two weeks.

Perhaps its because of the fact that while in my process, I have not drowned.

But instead am learning to breathe.

Underwater.

There are many unknowns in this thing called life.  And it's not always our job to figure out the "why's". We really aren't capable of doing so most of the time; there are often mysteries that remain that won't be figured out on this side of eternity.

But what we can learn to do, is breathe.  In one exhaling breath, we can exhaust all that has held us captive.  And in one inhale, we can breathe in all that will bring us to a new level of freedom.

And in the process of breathing, we do become new.

It may not look like what we were expecting.  It hasn't been what I expected.  But in my own way, I do dawn my tiara, in the form of sea goggles and a snorkle, and I swim around in an underwater adventure into my New Year.

Learning to navigate in an unfamiliar place.

And though I might run into some sharks or octopus with the potential to ink me into lunch, I also know that I will run into schools of beautiful fish with bright colors and hues I've never before seen.

And, so, I swim.

And also become new.

"The object of a new year is not that we would have a new year.  It is that we should have a new soul."   --G.K. Chesterton

And in this new year, it's true for me.  A new soul awaits.  It may not have come in a form that I thought made sense...but really, when does that ever happen?

If I thought I knew what was best for me, I surely wouldn't have ended up in most of the places I've ended up.  And, for that, I am grateful.

So, cheers to the New Year.  The heights and depths.  And the underwater adventures.

(corresponding song: Lovers' Carvings by Biblio)