Beginning Anew

It’s a new year....again!  How joyously I can report that!  I’m alive and so are you.  What fun!  And, so what did you do on New Year’s Eve?

I can honestly say I’ve made it to midnight every year of my adult life.  However, I am not one to drag myself to Times Square or to First Night or any of the other big events that require mobs to celebrate.

I’m one to stay home....or to celebrate quietly with a few good friends cooking lobster or steak and reflecting on our hopes for the coming year.  Sometimes, I’ve watched the TV entertainment.  My sister loves Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin.  I never even knew they had a show on CNN.

There was always Dick Clark, right?  You know you watched it, too.  Millions just like me.  Then, he had his stroke.  Did that stop him from ringing in the new year in front of millions?  Noooo....  Okay, on the one hand, you have to celebrate that he wasn’t going to let something as catastrophic as a stroke stop him from taking center stage.  That’s admirable, right?

But, on the other hand, didn’t someone tell him how difficult he was to watch?!  I hated to see my American Bandstand idol slur his words.  It was nothing if not disheartening and I could only take about five minutes before switching the channel.

This year, I watched nothing at all.  Buff Honey and I sat in our respective chairs reading our current books and around 11:30, we eased ourselves into the hot tub for a nice, relaxing soak.  Ahhhhh.....a glass of wine and some dark chocolate....perfect.

What are my hopes for 2014?  Last year, I was determined to lose weight...15 pounds.  Is that so impossible?  Well, I didn’t and I think I even added a couple.

Of course, this is soooo ridiculously common that I hate to even write it.  I’m making changes this time.  I learned I can’t drink and lose weight.  I can’t snack at night and lose weight.  I can’t skip my daily 30 minute workout and lose weight.  I can’t eat sugar.  I can’t eat processed or fried foods.  No fast food.  No chips or fries.  I have to be totally honest on my LoseIt app!

Then, I’d like to sell my house in Maryland....doesn’t help that a pipe burst in the garage a couple of days ago and it’s still only 13 degrees there today.

I’d like to have my osteoarthritis disappear...no more achy hips and knees...no more popping iburpofen and tylenol.  I’d like my chin to reappear.  What happened to my formerly angular face?  All soft and round now.  Who is that woman in the mirror?

How is this year going to be different from last year?  For one thing, I’m meditating every day.  I used to only meditate when I know I’m going to write but the benefits of meditating are limitless.  Fifteen to twenty minutes every morning.  It gives me energy, a softer outlook, insights that are so close to us but that we often miss because we’re so involved in our busy-ness.

Yesterday, after meditating, I just gave up being anxious about my house.  This is a short term problem.  This, too, will pass as my mom used to say.  I can’t obsess about this.  Do I love giving up half my income to a place I don’t live in?  A thousand times no but it won’t go on forever.

I need to volunteer more.  In Maryland, I worked for Hospice, which meant a lot to me (although I hated having to get flu shots!).  My brother works for a homeless kitchen in North Carolina several times a week.  He really makes a difference.  I’d like that again.

I’m grateful for being nearsighted so I can read to my heart’s content!  I just finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  784 pages.  Really.  I had never heard of her but the Washington Post raved about this book.  That’s double the number of pages I usually read.  I took the plunge.

In the first chapter, an eight year old boy goes to an art museum in New York City with his mother on their way to meet with the principal at his school.  She’s killed when a bomb explodes in the museum.

His alcoholic father left years before, his grandparents want nothing to do with raising him.  He’s on his own with the huge hole in his heart that had been filled with his mother’s love.  It’s a devastating intro.  It was difficult for me to get into because it was so painful.

But, I did.  And I was rewarded with some exquisitely philosophical prose.
 “That life--whatever else it is--is short.  That fate is cruel but maybe not random.  That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to grovel and bow to it.  That maybe we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves in it anyway, wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open.”  

For me, the meaning was about being courageous and living without fear.  One thing I do know is that living in fear is living in the dark.  If there’s one thing I’d like to remember is to act out of love.  Love is where the light is.

I think 2014 could be a great year, especially if I could find my waistline again!