Ushuring in the New Year

There is so much anticipation in the New Year. We all want January First to mean something great for all of us. A new resolution, a new goal, a new life. We think that on this day, the whole world is in front of us, we can reinvent, re-imagine and re-do a year, four years, a decade or a life of what has been dealt us.

But in reality, we can't. Instead, we look back with a skewed view of everything good and everything bad we've done in the past, and make inflated and unrealistic goals of what we want to accomplish in the new year. Why do I think that come some random day I will wake up and have some vision about my life that I had never had before? Is it all mental? Do I need simply to believe more in the myth of it all?

In this new year, here's what I've learned:

1) Life is really unpredictable. Even when it seems predictable, it's not. As Heidi Klum says, one day you're in, and the next day...you're out. We can all be out at any time. Don't look down on those who've not had the luck you have had. You never know when you'll be in the same position.

2) It's ok to be vulnerable, and to question yourself. Until I hit North Carolina for Christmas, I basically wept every day for one reason or another, all of them stemming from the same thing. I have one great friend who has listened to the song below with me for hours. It's ok for me to say that I am sad and scared and I do not know what will happen next. And I listen to this for comfort, for some reason.

3) It's ok to rely on family. We all have them, and they're all flawed in some way, but at the end of the day, you can curl up in a fetal position and know you'll be surrounded by some sort of amazing love. And family comes in a lot of ways. It's biological, but it's also the pillars who stand, stoic and concerned in your life.

Most of all, I've learned you get this one great chance in the world. And during that roll of the dice we all succeed and fail and struggle and rage against the things that seem either arbitrary, or entitled or unfair. And there's a lot of uncertainty. And it's scary, unfair and it makes you want to punch someone sometimes. But it's ours, it's alive, it's life.

And so we live. With trepidation, yes. But with purpose. And what scares me is that I am still unclear of my own purpose. I suppose I'll find it soon....

Happy New Year, loves.