New Day. New Year.

I have been so excited about this new year. I really can´t remember the last time I reacted to a new year with such joy and anticipation. I do often set goals for myself but the end of 2017 was different. I had dreams and plans, big lofty goals and small ones. I was looking forward to 2018 and moving the needle in every area of my life. Taking the lessons I learned in 2017 and putting them to use. 

My daughter and I stay up and watch the ball drop in Time Square on TV. Sometimes we are in bed (like this year) and sometimes we are up having a dance party but each year we welcome the next. This year after the ball dropped and she was drifting off to sleep a sense of dread washed over me. My chest tightened and I thought, ¨What the hell is this foreboding feeling?" 

Somewhere from deep inside me came this: ¨Nothing is different. Everything is the same. You still have the same issues, you are still the same person. Nothing has changed.¨

¨Sure," I thought, ¨We have made this demarcation in time and so what?¨

I eventually feel asleep in a swirl of emotions: most of them negative. 

I woke up this morning, January 1, 2018. Took my dog out, made some tea and as I sat perusing Instagram I was struck by all of the posts welcoming the new year. My sense of anticipation had returned and my feelings of negativity of the new year had vanished. Then it hit me:

If I am, if I even can be, this excited about the new year, why am I not this excited about every damn day? They are all new days, they are all new waiting to be written. Why do I only take time to make plans and goals and review after an entire year has passed? Why am I waiting? Why do I not make this a regular practice? Review, learn, plan, and execute. 

My word for this upcoming season (perhaps year) is COURAGE. Originally my thought was that I would need courage to meet my goals (and I will). Today I think courage will also be about facing each new day as the beginning that it really is. It honestly seems a little daunting to celebrate each day as new, but that´s exactly what it is. A beautiful, new day just waiting for us to live it.