New Year's has always held more personal significance to me than Thanksgiving or Christmas. Though meaningful and special in their own ways, I grew up associating those holidays with concepts like lots of food, or the prospect new toys or gifts -- all good things, but more mature adult concepts like gratefulness and the birth of Jesus never really set in my consciousness fully to replace them. New Year's Day is something that has made more sense to me as an adult: It represents both the end of things and beginning of things at once. It has made me pause and say goodbye to things I've grown out of, and welcome in new hopes and prospects of what may come. It is bittersweet and thankful and reflective.
A year ago today, I received the news that a friend of mine was killed in a tragic car accident. Yesterday, my friends were on my heart and mind, and I think they always will be on New Year's Day. As I look back on the year that followed, I realize that death -- or endings -- was somewhat of a theme that carried throughout. Friends married or drifted, new relationships I had hoped would work out a certain way didn't, and I found myself accepting things as they really were, maybe for the first time. Somehow through it all, I ended the year more at peace, if a little more wistful, than a year ago.
Whatever the new year may bring, I feel more ready to go through it and less afraid of what that may include. I have much to be grateful for, and feel like I have nothing to lose that I cannot keep.
No comments:
Post a Comment