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Have a (Fill In The Blank) New Year. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-26
Last Thursday, Winter Solstice, Yule, was also my birthday. (Shout out to all my fellow Solstice babies!) I've had 62 trips around the Sun. Sixty-two interesting and often eventful years. And for the very first time, I've yet to hear even one person say that they expect the coming new year to be better or easier for them than the one now winding down.
To be honest, I'm not really expecting it myself.
The last few years have certainly been difficult for me; each a little harder than the one before. I suspect it's been like that for a lot of people. Our personal sorrows and setbacks and defeats are harsh enough in themselves; combined with anxiety about things going on in the greater world outside, they can not just threaten to swamp us, but at times actually do so. This I know from personal experience.
But we still wish others a Happy New Year. It's a courtesy, a politeness, and sometimes a real wish that someone we care for might be blessed with a little more happiness, comfort, and peace in the coming year than they had in the year now ending.
Even if the words seem to ring a little hollow at times.
Next Monday is New Year's Day, and I've given some thought to what I might wish for myself. Of all the many things I could use more of in my life, what would really help me the most?
The easy answer is of course, more money. Not gazillionaire level money. Just enough to pay the bills, make needed repairs, get my teeth fixed, have something saved up for the future. Maybe even enough to be able to help others. You know, the usual.
But the truth is, more money actually wouldn't fix everything for me.
Loneliness, for instance. I've only recently realized that I've been lonely for a long time now. Certainly long before my husband got put behind bars. The day I realized that I actually am not more lonely now, with him gone, than I was when he was here, wasn't a "lightbulb moment". It was more like an earthquake, the kind that makes itself felt by a hundred little tremors day after day...before it hits for real. And demolishes the flimsy houses of your heart that you believed were so sturdy.
More money wouldn't have made the least difference on the day when I was home by myself, and went outside to confront one of my husband's "friends" who'd shown up uninvited. Claiming that several items belonging to him were here, and he wanted them back, or to be paid for them. Things he'd supposedly loaned to my husband, which hadn't been returned to him. I let him know (for at least the third or fourth time) that he wasn't welcome here. That any disputes he might have with my husband would have to wait to be resolved until my husband was released. On that day however I also told him that the next time he bothered me, either by phone or in person, I'd let the county sheriff's office deal with him.
More money would not have made it any less excruciating to regain the ability to just get out of bed and go to the bathroom unaided last summer. It wouldn't have made physical therapy any less grueling. Or make any less the lingering pain which I've come to realize may be with me all the rest of my days.
In my evening prayer, which I wrote for myself and recite every night before bed, there is a line which speaks to me now more deeply than even when I first wrote it.
May I face my challenges and obstacles with courage and wisdom.
Courage. Wisdom. Two simple, ordinary words that represent so very much. All of my evening devotional is meaningful to me. But over the course of this year now drawing to a close, that particular line comes back to me at odd moments. Nearly every day.
Courage and wisdom are definitely things I can use more of. Things that no amount of money could ever provide me with. They are things which I can ask for divine assistance with, but I won't ask to just have them infused like a spiritual vitamin B12 shot. I know that they are things I have to want enough to be willing to work for them. It'll take effort on my part.
That can happen if I make use of what I already have. If I have the courage to keep trying. And the wisdom to know how much I am capable of at any given time. Sometimes it will mean having the courage to see and accept that what is, is. And sometimes, the wisdom to know when I shouldn't try to deal with it- whatever it may be- entirely on my own.
To my friends and loved ones and even to strangers, I wish a very Happy New Year.
More than that, may you be blessed with everything you need to flourish and be content. Fill in the blank- whatever good and helpful thing, that is my wish for you.
For myself, I desire a courageous and wise new year.
..and maybe just a bit more money for all of us.
For my birthday this year my daughter took me out for a day of wandering around in Old Town Cottonwood. We stopped for refreshments at a place called Voda Boba.
Thank you for reading. This is an open thread, all topics are welcome.
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