New year's eve is a land mine of broken
promises, regrets, to do lists, goals, and wishful thinking. Much like
it's neighbor Christmas, people use this holiday to make lists of the things
they want and desire. The biggest difference is that the New Year’s Eve
list is written in a state of panic. I'm making my list the eve before the eve.
My list is more of a preemptive New Year’s Eve meltdown; I want to be
purposeful with my decisions and actions in the New Year, instead of just responding
to a few glittery hours of rehashing all that went wrong.
Here in the south it's a tradition to eat
black-eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread to bring prosperity, wealth, and
luck for the New Year. Some people place a penny under their bowl of
black-eyed peas to boost their luck potential. While not a fan of
black-eyed peas, (and not a true southerner) I am placing a good ol' shiny
Lincoln under my keyboard so as to not only absorb the good luck, but to pass
it on to all y'all who reads this.
If not for the very tail end of this year
shaking out the way it did, I'm not sure i'd even be doing this. Somehow over
the last month or so, I've been acutely aware of everything. Literally.
Everything that I encountered made me take pause. It's within the
walls of those pauses that I've been able to create somewhat of New Year's
list. They aren't resolutions. Those inevitably fail. They
aren't goals. Those inevitably don't get met. They are the facts of my
life that I am shining a different light on; I aim to illuminate the full
picture and to completely expose myself to myself. Thirty-five years
worth of partial sunlight has protected me and walled me and shielded me;
perhaps it needed too. I keep reading all these articles that say: you
are where you need to be! Don’t worry about anything you've done in the past,
you were meant to get here this way! So as annoying as that sounds,
perhaps I'll accept that premise and trust that for whatever reason, I am
feeling like I need to step out of the shade this year. This is the year
that I will truly see myself.
Last year I wrote a gratitude blog, and it helped
me appreciate and pay attention to all of the small details we tend to overlook
as we go about our busy lives. This year, I am writing a blog armed with
the flashlight apps and the strobe lights and the head lamps and the light
bulbs and the sun light - all the things that can reveal my hiding spots and
allow me to stand confident bathing in the exposure.
