Adieu and Hello.

            Crossroads. Ample beginnings – beautiful and succulent, you can almost taste it. Disastrous endings – ruining and bitter – your tongue retracts in disgust. Questions about self. Questions about God. Questions about tomorrow. Questions about satisfaction. Questions about happiness. You have them answered, or so you think after digging through tons of ink on paper… scrawling through the worldwide web… listening in on discussions… spending hours mapping out paths in your head. You were wrong. But then it comes like a flood one day – first as trickles, and then bursting into an over-washing torrent. The light comes on. You found yourself – your questions have been answered. And afterwards you run into another block – it is a cycle after all.

       And so for all the times of laughter and tears, screams and muffled sounds, blank oblivion and heightened awareness, enforced confidence and dispersed timidity, graceful acceptances and forced rejections, smiles and frowns – you either shrug in indifference or laugh with assurance. 2010 had them all, 2011 will have them again – simple cycle. The question is, since you know its just all a cycle, how are you going to adjust your attitude for the same recurrences? Yes, the New Year may not have the same exact events, but it will be a camouflage of events past. You could keep pining in anger or indifference or shame or [insert whatever adjectives that describe you putting yourself down], or you could adjust and be happy, smile, be content, welcome wholesomeness, live passionately and without regrets, live contentedly, and [insert whatever adjective to describe that motivating way of living life to conquer all odds]. And how you set about to do it matters, living life beautifully that is.

       As for me, I’ll be making that list and analyzing it for years to come – no not a new year’s resolution (I never keep those). Let’s call it a life list – things that are always at my crossroads, things that I will be possibly working on my whole life. At the core of this life list is be satisfied within His Will, no matter what situation I find myself in. This will produce sweat beads – no doubt, and yet, I have no doubts that within His Will is perfect peace and happiness (which is what we all want anyhow).

       So join me as we toast 2010 goodbye, and raise our glasses to 2011. I’ll be enjoying the freezing air of the big apple as I get ushered into the New Year – see you in January. Happy New Years!!!