Last Christmas, I got a new pair of gloves, new headband, and a new mug. These were given by a Secret Santa whose identity (or identities) has not been revealed to this day. Jeff and I decided to be extra frugal this holiday season and spent as little as possible on gifts compared to the Christmas extravaganza that we organized last year. We decided that the presence of a family member whom we seldom spend time with is more important than a new pair of boots so we booked air tickets for Jeff’s daughter and the kids’ sister Danielle to fly from Arizona to here (Montana) to spend four days with her. It was fun and memorable. It meant a lot to me and to Jeff and the kids even though they may not have memories of what happened.
The children, Nicholas most especially, love Danielle. You should have seen the look on his face the night Danielle knocked on the front door. Nicholas was beside himself in excitement and called on me and Jeff to open the door. He kissed Danielle and hugged her and for the next three days, annoyed her in between giggles and smirks. We shared meals of Filipino dishes and on Christmas Day had a wonderful lunch at my brother-in-law Joe’s home. We opened presents and had Italian for lunch.
Three more nights before the start of 2016 and I’m left reflecting about how my 2015 turned out. It was nothing but chaotic. I travelled to eight countries, transferred homes, moved to a different continent, got robbed, got separated from my kids, got overly stressed out, grew very scared that I might have a miscarriage, managed a home with three kids in the last 200 days (or more) for the very first time, remained sane but not without bouts of depression in between.
And now… here we are… the first day of the year two thousand sixteen.
The thing about the new year is that it gives us the chance to write new and/or improved/updated/upgraded chapters of our lives. It gives us the opportunity to charter a new course using our mistakes and realizations as guides. I’m done making New Year’s resolutions or at least calling them such. I started making them when I was eight and before January ended, I already broke half of them.
So instead of resolutions, I’m writing down the parts of me which I want and need to improve on this 2016. I feel like that I am always a work in progress even though I feel that I want to just “finish” certain parts of me so I can move on with the rest. That’s the price that people like me, with attention-deficit disorder, face. We’re not totally useless. It’s just challenging to control ourselves. In my case, I’ve been successful in taming my wandering mind in the past 25 years. Well at least most of the time.
But not my soul though.
I’ve wandered and became interested in a lot of things and didn’t finish most of them. I’m looking at going back to them this year and do what I can to write “-30-” on them if needed.
The new year presents the chance to start on a clean slate. I would love to hear about smokers deciding to quit their nicotine addiction or druggies giving up ecstacy, marijuana, or cocaine. Or perhaps corrupt people having a change of heart and realizing that they should just do good.
This may be wishful thinking, I know. But hey, it’s a new year and with every new year comes the hope and the promise that things will get better.
Positivity and optimism, like its cousin hope, spring eternal.
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T30WC or The 30-minute Writing Challenge is a writing exercise born out of this blogger’s need to maintain a habit of writing. Subjects of each writing challenge is just about anything but should ONLY be written within 30 minutes.
