New year’s eve is the best kind of magic. The slate is wiped clean, all that was, no longer is, and the horrible things that happened during the year can now be put behind us. Here is to a better 2014. The symbol of the newborn fits because the new year is all full of hope and promise.
In that light, we promise not to drag the same old self into the new year, to take better care of ourselves. We will lose the weight, handle our money better, and set new career goals for ourselves. By golly, it is going to be a better year!
Sometimes it doesn’t take very many steps into the new year or even a new day until we get a sign that maybe the day or the year is not going to be all that we had hoped. Here comes Debbie Downer. Frustration appears, the stress level rises, a monkey jumps on our back and screeches in our ear. Sometimes it is our own monkey, sometimes it is a monkey delivered by somebody else.
Wait a minute. Take a breath. This is life. The feeling that the new year would go along swimmingly with everything as planned was an illusion. When you dumped 2013 for all of the promise of 2014, did you dump the good moments with it? Can you think back to a happy moment in 2013? If you can’t, then you are setting yourself up for failure because you are living in darkness, recalling only the times and feelings of despair. You need to retrain yourself to savor the good times like a butterscotch.
So now you can think about the new year with eyes wide open. There may have been loss last year, be it a person or a pet or a favorite thing. There may very well be loss this year. There may have been a disaster that you are still cleaning up. Keep that mop and bucket close at hand. Somebody or something may have ripped a hole in your heart. Apply needle and thread. Your heart will not be the same, but you will go on.
It’s time to start that new journal, to begin the diary to record every thing that you laugh or smile at. Every time you taste the butterscotch, enjoy it and write it down. On your next new year’s eve, you can enjoy the best read of your life.
Family Dimensions 