Thoughts of a Vegetable

The New Year is very nearly here, and not in the way that your mum says when you are actually two and half hours away from your destination on a trip to visit relatives… it’s literally around the corner. And?

And, actually, I’m not sure. What you are reading now was written only after four false starts.

I grew up in an environment that focused a lot on the big picture, the span of existence from birth to death. And even though I could take a stab at the meaning of existence, or what I would consider a successful life, I can hardly think of what to fill my life with. Having been in school for the past thirteen years it actually a challenge to try and sort out what to do on a daily basis. I’m not a total loser though, it’s not like I just sit about every single day. But there is a fair amount of vegging in my life right now.

It’s not just that I like big picture, in many ways it’s what keeps me going. The big picture is just a synonym for Meaning, or Purpose or Understanding, all in capitals because they are the Why’s of your life, well, at least of my life. Although we can make plans, for the next hour or day or week, or even year and decade, what we will actually accomplish by the end is almost completely unknown, how we will feel is totally unpredictable. I have mentioned my anal tendencies before and the more I let them go the more I think that my life is almost living itself, which makes stressing out, about almost anything, pointless. So we (I) have lowers points, times when it seems like nothing is being accomplished, and other times when we (I) are so busy busy busy we can hardly remember to brush our teeth. All these things make up life and to not have had a little of everything is to have led a life that is, strangely, lifeless.

It’s a funny combination of grabbing every moment of joy from the moments we (I) have on earth and allowing things to come to you and dealing with them from there, I think.

For last year's words belong to last year's language

Ans next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

~ T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

Just like every single day, New Years is an opportunity to take another breath and try again. Like every day, New Years can, or can not, be a marker or the turning of a leaf, a line in the sand. Last year as my family brought in the New Year together I cried and cried, because even though I knew how screwed up so many days of 2009 were because of me, I felt like I could leave them behind, like I was given another chance. And I was.

2011 is another chance. Another try. God bless it.

May God also bless you in this new year.

Kika