Old Year, New Year

The new year is coming rather rapidly. In the waning hours of 2008, though, I have to admit myself awed by the old year. It was perhaps the fullest of my thirty years, carrying a vast emotional range that still overwhelms me as I look back.

Dad-gum it, I’m actually crying.

Apt descriptors for the year of our Lord 2008, in my life, include beautiful and arduous, poignant and brilliant, thrilling and painful. And stressful—and glorious.

Most of the main causes have gotten at least a brief mention here. Not all. But there are only two hours left in the old year and I’d like to be asleep for part of them. No, I am not planning to stay up; the fireworks and shouting will likely waken me at midnight, though, perhaps for long enough to say a quick prayer of thanks and petition over both years.

New Year’s resolutions seem to have fallen out of vogue; only a couple of people have even mentioned them in my hearing. Last year, I didn’t make any. Without intending to make a fine list of goals for the purpose of forgetting them all by the fourth of January, however, there are a few things I’d like to accomplish in 2009. I want to write—to keep up this blog more, create new songs, and return to my long-loved fiction, where I hear the worlds of faerie calling. I’d like to do more recording. I want to get more exercise and lay off the stress, hopefully to get some of my once-strong health back. And maybe at some point God will consider it time to give me the gift for which I’ve begged him, quite shamelessly, since my wedding.

Time in great increments is a fearsome thing to stare in the face and usually much less imposing to look back upon. I don’t know what this annual giant holds, but I’ll take it as it comes. Starting with tomorrow.

Happy New Year, everyone.