End of Another Year. Or Age.

“God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,
I'll say it again,
God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain… “
(John Lennon - “God”)

So, we’re back at the inevitable end, eh? Well, not “the” same end, but, like a spiral, the end of another year … This year surely kicked my butt in more ways than one… I don’t believe I had ever contemplated death as much as I have this year. Death and birth both. As Bono says: “the two biggest events of our lives that we have absolutely no control over”.
I feel at least 10 years older now that on December 30, 2006. And judging by my gray hair, you would say the same thing too…My sister hates my gray hair. Not because she hates the color. She hates being reminded that time passes and we grow old. I love it, though, and I told her: embrace it! Embrace the wisdom you’ve gained in living! And this year, more than any other, this really holds true for me!
I have been taught so many lessons in loving, living, dying and hope this year that I don’t believe I learned all my 32 years put together…
If I feel anything at the end of 2007, is … tired … Tired but not wasted. Just tired and melancholy. Not bitter, surprisingly enough. Maybe even sweeter and calmer. I have always been the never-ending, absolute control freak … till this year – when I realized God laughs so hard at us control freaks! And He shows us who the boss really is every once in a while, JUST to set us straight!
God is so great. So awesome and unbelievably, overwhelmingly all powerful! – I have found …
I have learned how strong humans can be, and just how much pain one human body can take at one time. And how much morphine really doesn’t help on some wounds. I have learned the strength I can muster when I put my heart and mind into something. I have found the depths of my love and giving are bottomless indeed! And I am grateful I was born that way! I have learned that no one dies on my watch. At least if I can help it!
I have found out that maybe long distance romances can work, if true love and truthfulness are involved. After all, I have fallen in love with my folks all over again as an adult, and I have been 5000 miles away from them for 10 years now. But I still don’t believe in the soul mate stuff.
I have found out how picky I truly am about humans. I love them all, for letting me get to know … humans… but I am indifferent of them all, for my own self-preservation. At least thus far.
I have learned that it takes time but mostly patience and open-minded-ness to make a good friendship and just a fleeting whim and/or moment to break it. I have also learned life’s too short for some people to be worth the bother of making friends! I have also learned I am expendable to others. So much the better: I am glad they beat me to the punch of “breaking up” with them. :-)
I have found new friends, rediscovered old ones I thought lost and lost others. I have no regrets! After all, that’s my religion: to live with no regrets, right?!
I have found new music, new books, new art to enrich my imagination and feed my writing voice and world, in general. I have a new found confidence in my writing voice, for which I thank God every night.
I have found a new home and after cooking a few meals in it and putting up a Christmas tree in it, I really feel that it suits me and it’s my abode! Not some other’s … And I am now eagerly waiting to share it with the world, and with friends and family and a new life, too …
I have found out how much I can really love my kin! And how much I didn’t know about them. How much I took for granted and how many lessons I owe them, in love, and acceptance!
I have really understood the truly deep meaning of this: “Life is what happens when we’re too busy making plans”. So true! And that’s why I got no plans for the new year. Other than to stay open and be ready to soak up LIFE. I was way busy this year, making plans! HHmm… yeah …
I have learned that age is irrelevant in dating. You can be 40 and still in diapers, you can be 27 and have lived your life and be ready to die at Christmas time.
My brother in law taught me to hope and be grateful. Be grateful for love, one another and health. He also taught me he and everyone else is a yin-yang kinda being. We all have bright spots and dark ones, and it all makes up a beautiful, unique whole. And we all should be blinded by the bright spots, and love, and appreciate and value those, and never ever waste time even noticing the dark ones. And for that I will be forever grateful to him.
Some of my friends taught me patience (although I need another 2 decades of work there) and others taught me love. I’ll promise I’ll continue the research religiously on both and will deepen my understanding of the two.
My sister taught me love and the unconditional kind, too…AGAIN! God bless her; she is my true guardian angel! Always taking care of my soul!
A stranger taught me about death on Christmas, when we celebrate the most glorified Births of them all! And he taught me that all is relative, here on Earth! One day, you love, live and build your dreams, and another one, you’re lying cold in the morgue of a foreign country in an unknown hospital, 5000 miles away from home. “The trouble is we think we have time” – we really don’t!!!
Happiness, I found, is what you can find in one day that’s worth not crying sad tears for. The non-pain of every day should be good enough sometimes, if not most. If not all times. And if anything, that’s what I am wishing myself and all for the new year: more happiness, whatever our understanding of it is!
It’s been a sad, gloomy and tense year – if I have to put a label on it. I wish for an easier one, but like birth and death, I feel we have little control over it …I’ve lived enough to know that after terrible lows, we get magnificent highs, and I am hopeful! At the threshold between the years, I am hopeful…
At least now, I know I have the strength to pull through whatever the year might bring…Really?! I don’t even believe that statement…’Cause, trust me, the year can bring a crapload of stuff you’re not ready for!! We’ll see…
And I am happy that I am here, writing this, with heart full of hope…
Happy New Year, all! And thanks!