New Year

Well, it's a new year, a new number to get used to when writing the date or a cheque. 2018. It seems like only yesterday we were welcoming in a new millennium. Where have the last eighteen years gone?

Normally I feel all discombobulated at the beginning of a new year. I compare the passing of a year to climbing a mountain.  In January, we start at the foothills where the vegetation is lush and slowly make the ascent into February, March, April and so on. By December, after a lot of hard effort, we finally get to the snowy peak and regard the world from on high. But come New Year's Eve, we fall off the cliff edge, falling falling falling..........until we reach the ground, there at the foothills once more to start the arduous climb into January.

I felt like that again yesterday. But there is a difference this year. Not only am I in the foothills again, but instead of the same familiar path I have trodden for the last few years, there is a fork and another path to take. A path up a completely different mountain. For the last four years I have dedicated my time to caring for my mother and put my own life on hold. For the last 6 months it has been a daily preoccupation, so much so that I was really living my mother's life and not mine.  I would have not wanted it any other way, but now she is no longer here, I must make a new life for me. Follow new pursuits, make new friends, maybe even travel and explore new things.

  
With that in mind, I spent new year down in Brighton with my two closest friends. We sat by a roaring fire while the rain lashed down outside. We ate too much, drank too much and chatted well into the wee small hours of New Year. It was just what I needed. Even my friend's cat agreed it was the best place to be.

And so I start January with optimism that this will be a better year. A year to reinvent myself and explore. Who knows where this will lead me? A Happy New Year to you all.