Every New Years Eve I feel the need to start something new. I stopped making "resolutions" years ago but that doesn't stop me from feeling that overwhelming emotion that is most often called hope. Hope that this year will be the year that... fill in the blank. The year that I stick to writing in a journal every day. Or do another 365 day photo challenge. Or meditate every morning before work. Or post at least one blog a month. Or work on some flaw about myself that I hate. In that sense, this New Years Eve really isn't much different. But there are some ways in which it is different. And I don't know if it's because I'm different, or because this year has been different, or both.
For me there's a ritual to New Years Eve. Getting dressed up (even on the years I just sit at home with family), and watching the ball drop, and cheers-ing at midnight, and hugs and kisses with friends and/or family. But this year feels different. For so, so many reasons. This year I don't care about watching the ball drop or watching the performances leading up to it. I'm also just over live Zoom calls with celebrities and social distanced interviews, so I'm sure that's part of it. I also don't feel the need to cover my face in make-up just to make myself feel better and pretend that at midnight everything starts over. We know that's not true. Deep down, we know.
But I still have the hope. That this year will be greater than 2020. It has to be. How could it not? Statistically what are the odds that it's anywhere near as awful as this past year? I'm not superstitious but I should probably still knock on some wood now, right? Things will not change over night, but how can I not have hope that slowly, maybe painfully, eventually, things will get better? Maybe on it's own... maybe through a lot of work on my part.
This year my hopes aren't loud. They aren't things that I'm going to shout to the universe and post on social media. They're things I hold a little closer to the chest. They're deep desires and painful wants and desperate needs.
I'm going to enter this year more quietly, more thoughtfully, more introspectively, with the knowledge that I have the power inside myself to make changes that I know are necessary, regardless of the crazy happening outside of myself that I absolutely cannot control. Because if 2020 has taught me anything it's that we have little power over the world around us. But if this crazy never ends, if the world around us continues to plummet and we find ourselves in a never-ending spiral of despair and death and tragedy and injustices, then we have to find ways to survive. I have to find ways to survive. And that is through a lot of small things that need to change inside myself. In my heart, in my mind, and in my soul.
So here's to the little changes we all need to make. Here's to the self-care and the rituals and the relationships and the nourishment and the love and the hope and all the things we need to consume more of in the coming year to better ourselves, for ourselves, regardless of our surroundings. Here's to knowing ourselves better and being patient. Here's to always growing, always learning, and most importantly... always hoping.
Happy New Year's Eve
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