Hello, Hello

I have this strange feeling today of being stuck in the middle of a sentence.

It just took me a minute to figure out how to begin this post--thinking somehow this First Day should feel different (it doesn't) and I should have something interesting to say about it (I don't). Realizing that January 4 will be the true start of my new year, reorienting (again) to a different way of living for awhile. Re-making the commitments to my health, physical and mental, that I only seem to do effectively when I'm on my own. Reorganizing my life into what works for ME... locating things in my kitchen where I can find them, spacing my time as I need it, orienting my attention and energy to my own highest priorities.

But in the meantime, I'm hanging out in limbo, feeling like the sentence I'm in needs to come to its full stop before the next capital letter begins a new idea in my life. Trying not to wish away the proverbial "period" that is coming on Sunday, and trying to look forward to the new possibilities of the next sentence in my life.

So, in true in-denial procrastinator fashion, I have just spent two precious hours of sleeping-children time surfing the internet. Checking out some old favorites, following lots of wild-goose-chasing links. Starting to wonder why other people seem to accomplish so much creative and interesting stuff in their lives while I don't (hm, maybe all the time I spend online has something to do with that?). But also gleaning; looking for some handles to put on my 2009. Reining in my Intuitive (who looooooves to collect ideas and possibilities, but isn't so good at following through on the ones that really matter) and wondering how I can begin this year--or the year that will truly begin for me on Sunday--with a helpful, motivating, encouraging plan for thriving in 2009.

The December 31 page in my Christmas journal became a "highs & lows of 2008" and "hopes & plans for 2009" list. I meant to write broad, open encouragements rather than resolutions... but my "hopes & plans" list, naturally, became lengthy. All good things, but more good than I could possibly keep up with in any given day! So here I am, hanging out in one of life's weird contractions, and trying to face a new year without already being overwhelmed by what I want to do, and who I want to be.

So forget the list (which I was going to post here but have now decided not to); it can stay safely tucked away on its Dec. 31 page, to remind me where I was yesterday. Today I'm starting over with just One (hopefully Faithful) Step, and with just one commitment, for now, for the coming year: ONE WORD EACH DAY. One word to meditate on, to listen to, to grow with or get angry at or weep aloud. One word in writing or in art, in a daily journal----even if each day's word is the only thing on the page.

And so--

Hello. Hello 2009, with all the crap you will bring, with all the laughter and the aggravation and the complete surprises (good and bad). Hello to a life I didn't exactly choose, but in which I can still thrive and move forward and become. Hello friend I have yet to make, hello poem I have yet to write. Hello new skills, new passions, new day after days, new step after steps.

(With thanks to Dan Zanes for this: http://www.danzanes.com/songs/hello.shtml, which my four-year-old and I can love together, if for different reasons. "And though the clouds may come/just say hello, hello, hello." Indeed.)