Is it winter, or the fact that we recently returned home from a long-anticipated vacation (which followed closely on the heels of much-anticipated Christmas), or just the usual ups & downs of my mood? Or is it the particular circumstance of spending so much of so many days alone? The fact that my face is bloated and when I look in the mirror I don't recognize (or don't want to) the face looking back? Is it that I have so many goals but am not sure how to achieve them? Or is it that I just can't, after all this time, make peace with past goals and achievements and what came after (unfocused, adrift, despair, perceived failure)? It is time to move on, to stop thinking "what if" in terms of past events that cannot be undone, to find my hopeful mojo about my own future. I used to think that I could do anything I wanted if I put my mind to it, and I find that these days I no longer believe that. But surely there are still some aspirations that I can turn into realities. There was a man in my law school class who turned 40 during our first year of law school, and I did not think that his starting a brand new career at his age was foolish. "Big deal," I thought. And yet this year I will be 42, and so often I think, "there is no time for that." I want to find a way to appreciate the okayness of the present while also being able to cherish the beloved moments of the past and look forward to the challenges and triumphs of the future. There will be triumphs, I tell myself, and I hope that I'm right. I try to think of a word for the year, but it doesn't come.
But now I think: Go. (Maybe this is my word.) Go. Or possibly: Do. Or maybe even just: Be.
Comments