Dear Past, Thank you for all the lessons. Dear Future, I'm ready...
And so another year passes into history. It's a strange time of year, New Year's Eve. On the one hand you have people wanting to go out and celebrate the passing of one year and the birth of another, singing songs, holding hands in complicated ways and knocking back the pints like there's no January 1st.
But on the other hand you have the melancholy that a New Year can bring. Few people can deny that January can be a thoroughly depressing and disheartening month. That post-celebratory period when nothing seems very enjoyable: the weather's usually appalling, there are debts to pay after the excesses of Christmas, and everybody's on a misguided drive to "better themselves", to diet or exercise or quit something in order to make them feel they are a better person, or at least making progress toward becoming one.
The truth is, we are who we are and it's difficult to change that, especially with a half-hearted diet or exercise fad. People seem determined in January to turn over a new leaf, make a change, start afresh... but so many people fall at the first or second hurdle, slipping back into their familiar routine.
And so January can be a depressing time, when ambitions are raised and dashed, and the half-lit gloom of a winter's month conspires to convince you that life is just so bloody boring and dull.
And then February comes with its Valentine's Day and promises of an early spring, and things start to improve. And then March and April bring their Easters and warmer weather, until we're back into the swing of things come May.
That all seems a bit of a ramble, reading it back, but it was a stream of consciousness, so I'm leaving it in! But what I did want to say was that New Year, for me, is a mixed bag of emotions. I'm happy to welcome in 2015 with a few drinks and a song, but underneath the surface merriment, there is a nagging feeling of melancholy. I wonder what 2015 will bring?
Certainly, for me, 2014 was a year of renewal and change. In December 2013 I had what might be described as a mini breakdown. I was signed off work, depressed and disillusioned. One day I might actually write about it.
It took me a month to get back on track and "rediscover myself", as my doctor ordered. And I did that, so by January 2014 I was re-focused on the future and trying to get out of it what I wanted.
It can take time to figure out what that is, too, and sometimes you have to identify what you don't want first before coming upon what you do want.
And so by the end of 2014 I've got married (after 18 years together already!) and quit my job, a job I'd been in for far too long, which was not healthy for me, and which I no longer fully believed in. It was time to make a change for the better while it was still possible. It was a brave move, but very definitely the right choice.
And with brave choices comes the fear of the unknown. But whatever 2015 holds, for me as well as mine, it must be faced with strength and fortitude, with enthusiasm and, where appropriate, joy.
Because life is not a rehearsal. You get only one of them, and this is it. It's so important to make your life what you want it to be, or as close as possible.
You won't get another chance. Not in this lifetime...
PS: It's interesting looking back on my blog post from December 27th last year and reading how I was feeling with the onset of 2014. I was looking forward to it and was convinced it was going to be a good one. Which it was. So this encourages me to look to 2015 with even more enthusiasm and a positive outlook. Let's see what the morrow may bring...
