Hip Hip Hip

This was to be a simple post and it was to be posted on New Years Day. But just like happens in real life; life gets in the way. I was hit with the worst stomach flu imaginable, my good friend Carol is dying in the hospital (colon cancer), I was in the hospital for pamidronate, and I am sickened by what is happening in Gaza. But like a typical North American my attention does not dwell long on these matters.

This was to be a positive post and it still will be. Actually it will be a real post and things in life are a mixture of the pretty and the ugly.

“Tell me a story, Pew.”

What story, child?

“One that begins again.”

That’s the story of life.

“But is it the story of my life?”

Only if you tell it.

~~ Anonymous ~~

A new year, can you believe it? I don’t do resolutions (I make them, I just don’t do them) but I do have hopes and dreams and they boil down to one thing; life. My goal for 2009 is to live and see 2010.

I am looking forward to the change this world needs – Bush/Cheney out of office (they should both be brought before The Hague for war crimes). Please Obama, be who we all hope you are.

The one thing a new year (just like a new day) brings is the opportunity to start fresh, a brand new story to be written on a brand new slate. Even though reality presses in on me from all sides, I can’t but feel hopeful at the beginning of a new year.

I am looking forward to change; a change of pace and a change of self. Within that change is a hope that I can get it right, that I can be a better person than I have been, the hope that I can be a better mother than I have been. I want to feel inspired once again; I want to remember how it feels to shake things up. I want, I want, I want. I am hoping for less of the difficult and more of the good.

I believe that change starts within oneself and usually begins with one step. Almost everything I have ever done has been because I just put one foot in front of the other.

Allow no one to define you, even when, or especially when you are made to be something grander than you are. I make a conscious effort to listen to what I think and believe and say to myself when no one else is in the room. I am the only person who can decide if I am a worthwhile person.

I remind myself to believe in myself. While I am able I need to go to the trouble to discover my own potential. I need to have the courage to stand up for what I believe in and to have the heart and the wisdom to know how to speak out.

At this stage in my life it is very important that the relationships I have be real. If not, there is no point. I want you to know me and I want to know you. I know who I am on the inside and I am happy that you also know who I am. I am one and the same to myself and to you.

I try to make the most with what I have. I look fear in the face always recalling from the Dune books ‘Fear is the mind-killer.’

One of the great skills and knacks of life is to see beauty in everything. I try and life is really pretty darn amazing. Life isn’t always pretty though – bad things happen remember – but it is almost always made up of something pretty heartfelt and genuine. There is always within the beauty something that describes what it means to be alive.

We have to enjoy the moments of our lives, before they too will only be a memory. Enjoy the present, the right now, before it is gone.

My wish for my children in this new year is that each night when they lay their heads down on their pillows all their cares of the day will slip away. Dream the dreams of children my children. Let each day worry about itself and sleep in peace knowing that all your needs will be met, sleep in peace knowing that you are loved, and sleep in peace knowing that tomorrow will be full of new possibilities.

2009 seems like a good year for enlightened discussion and opportunities for compassion, so let’s go for it.

Hip hip hip, three cheers to our lives on these new days in this new year.