The holiday season officially comes to a close today with the celebration of New Years. This year, more than most, I wave goodbye to it quite vigorously. It's been an odd time of trying to connect, and almost connecting, and missed connections, and a touch of togetherness here and there. Usually at this time of the year I feel a spirit that is pervasive and brings joy. I looked for it for the past few weeks and found it missing. Perhaps something missing in me as well.
2017 held many positive pieces for me. Travel, reading, friends, family, writing, theater, goals set and met. I feel grateful and blessed to have celebrated 70 years on the planet, and am gearing up for many more. So much left to do before I sleep, or some such semi-quote. And yet, there is a pall as well. A step off, I feel. I try to overlook it, to let it ride, but I carry it with me, sitting on my sleeve, hanging on my heart, burrowing in my brain. My optimistic nature acquiesces to the tumult and spirals. I recognize this. Depression. I am familiar with the fight.
I will do what I do when the doldrums develop. I will ride with them and on them and over them until the waves pass and like a successful surfer I will ride them to the beach. I will look outward and consider the state of the world and the rantings of the man-child who would be king and shake my head and say no, this unconscionable divider of the nation is not the cause of my state right now (although contributory to my feelings of lack of justice). I will turn news of him off. Narcissists cannot thrive on backs being turned. I will look inward and contemplate how the death of my closest friend since I was born, my sister, rocks my world, but is not the cause of my state now (although the focus of many losses in my life). I will grieve her and go on.
Recently I have returned to one of the enjoyments of my childhood---painting by number. It's soothing and keeps me off the computer as I watch tv in the evenings. I had done one rather easy and mindless rendition of elephants on the veldt. For Christmas, I thought to paint two Clydesdales ready to pull a sleigh. I would finish that and a smaller pic of Santa Claus before Christmas. But the Clydesdales were quite a project of simple numbers and mixing numbers. I finished on New Years Eve. I was so focused on the pieces to the painting and judging how I blended this and that here and there, that I was in a near constant state of disappointment, even as I carried on to completion. I was looking at all of the little parts and missing the whole. When I finished yesterday, I took a picture to send to my daughter. The picture was the whole. And it was beautiful.
This year, 2018, I make no resolutions, other than to live life to the fullest I can. I doubt that I can thoroughly give up being disappointed and looking at the little parts of life and judging and worrying as I move along. But I hope, and here is the hope I found missing earlier, I hope that I can carry on to completion to the beautiful whole, and then pause to appreciate that whole and all of the necessary imperfections and flaws that in some sort of alchemical wave created the beauty. This is life.
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