New Years is Highly Over Rated

I think I’ve been looking at this wrong all along: the meaning of New Years. Bodily, it feels like the new year should be like a turning of a corner. Or a flipping of a page. That’s why it seems appropriate to make some big declaration that “as of January 1 I will no longer (fill in the blank).” But, when I really think about it (especially with a glass of wine in my hand), it really is not a new beginning, or a page turn, or even turning a corner. It is a continuum. It’s just one more morning to wake up and see what is in store for us for the very day. At this point in the continuum (yes, honestly, that is how it is spelled. I looked it up!) we do get to put up a new calendar, so it might be a significant blip on the continuum, if one is determined to see it as such, but it doesn’t cause any reversal of time. No real chance for a “do over.” Just a “do better” I guess.

I really wish I could turn off this brain sometimes. Because I think this realizing that there is no real chance for a “do over” is depressing. I want a few do overs. Some really big ones. And some not so big ones. Just ones that would clean things up a bit.

The do betters are really such an unsatisfactory substitute for the do overs. For years I’ve vowed to do better. And not just on New Years. I want to do better all the time. And then I don’t. Don’t do better, that is. I still wake up as my disorganized, self-control lacking, evil thinking, procrastinating, fibbing, exaggerating, unappreciative, disappointed, selfish, self-centered self.

I was reading something the other day (I’ll try to re-find it so I can properly cite it) that caused me pause to think about this whole New Years continuum, etc. “The only purpose of Time is to make it so that everything doesn’t occur at once.” So I curse, yet appreciate this continuum that stretches before me.