I hesitated and debated with myself on whether to do this, and finally decided that the Magic Mirror just wouldn’t be the same without a traditional — if belated — New Year post 🙂
I’ve been thinking: why does the New Year excite us so much — why does it inspire and scare us so?
A poem a friend of mine wrote a few days ago led me to an answer. I think the key to the New Year’s is in the word “new.” A new relationship. A new child. A new house. A new draft. A new story. A new year. Newness means hope. Another chance.
Last year — the old year — was good for me in so many ways, great even. It brought countless moments of happiness and love. It brought new revelations, achievements, new lessons learned. And yet, if I said the year brought me everything I wanted I would be lying.
I didn’t sign that contract I’ve been dreaming about.
But it’s not even that — what was worse — way worse — was that I didn’t finish the story I thought would surely be making the rounds by now.
That was my heaviest disappointment of the year.
But that’s the way it is, isn’t it?
At the start of each year, we are nervous and hopeful. As the ball drops, our hearts lift with desire. We hope that maybe this year we will get it right. This year we will re-invent ourselves.
But what I realize now, is that there is no need (at least for me) to keep trying to be this new person every year. This shiny idea of the perfect me is just that — an idea.
Here is what I am beginning to understand: every year will bring joy –and disappointment.
And the two are interwoven together tightly as the strands of hair in a braid.
My not completing the novel I hoped to finish led me to re-evaluate my revision methods. It pushed me to try new things.
Saying “hello” to 2012, I am going easy on hopes and wishes this time around, while continuing to focus on my goals. The things I can do. Revisions. Completions. Submissions.
I don’t care about a book contract in 2012.
Okay, maybe that’s a lie. I care. But I don’t wish for it. Nope. I am hereby striking it from my list of hopes and wishes for this year. In fact, I am keeping that list very short, and here it goes:
To reach my own goals. Hit my own deadlines.
That’s all I want for this year.
Happy 2012, everyone!
May your joys this year outweigh your disappointments. May you have the strength, committment and wisdom to keep your resolutions, and may those bring you closer to your dreams.
Katiaesque 
Leave a comment