lagilman | in Anticipation of First Night....

Long-time readers of this journal know that I'm not much for year-end wrap-ups, nor do I do Resolutions as such. Long-time friends will also attest to the fact that, while I am always on time, my sense of the greater Time is fluid, and I'm far more likely to forget what month it is than to tick off the passing of a specific yet arbitrary date.

And yet, I love New Year's Eve/First Night. No matter how you observe -- surrounded by casual friends or thousands of strangers or gathered with only your nearest-and-dearest -- it's a powerful, simple celebration of change and survival and contemplation and anticipation.

Many people have decried 2009 as the worst year ever, and I won't deny there were a lot of downsides... but there were also moments of great joy and hope and pleasures. New friends and new experiences, old friends revisited, great things accomplished, and dreams realized and revised. I danced more this year than I did last, and if I cried, I cried on the shoulders of dear friends, and was there in turn when they needed my shoulder.

Occasionally I hear people say "Next year has to be better!" No, it doesn't. It doesn't have to be worse, either. It's just another 12 months to do things in. Go, do.

May the best of the past year
be the very worst you encounter in the new year
filled with the dreams you dared not hope for
and the songs you didn't know how to sing
And if you are still searching
may 2010 bring you at last
to the shores of where you need to be.

And happy birthday to