Welcome, It’s Another Year

Time for another wander in my mind? For some while now focused elsewhere, I invite the Muse to revisit & stir the stilled waters. I invite a new year in & escort the old one out, but politely, cuz you never know when a year might come in handy to revisit. Hey, I’ll only save the best to savor from it, though.

The best: driving cross-country after years of in-place life. Finding a companion to sleep on my cane-back chair in T or C. Eating what I will, working when I will, sharing everything but living like a hermit crab with no surface from the shell. Friends I know well, each one a show-&-tell. Being a leader in a small community where the born-there did not welcome “immigrants” but we were the ones pushing movement onward, holding committees. Having a lover for awhile before removing myself from even that since love is not enough if it isn’t what’s expected & the habits of being alone overwhelm it.

Of course there was so much more! But I usher it out because there is so much new & more lively to replace it & I’ve barely touched the surface here yet. There are museums & beaches & new unmet friends & fulfillment of so many other needs. But I nibble at a smorgasbord, yeh?

I keep my split-shift life, awake at odd hours but now I work during these, writing notes I’ve taken on the job, checking emails for to-do lists, keeping in touch with many via cards & letters. I am less alone & reveling in that. I serve others with my work & this feels so worthwhile I tend to snuggle up close to that & experience less outward living online.

But I’ve been & gone before here.

I write of what disturbs me, of what moves me, of crazed-funny things that happen. I am more reserved about it now since I’m living it out loud, not testing it in the sound chamber here. I know there is so much more for me to do, to have, to be & I anticipate it all on this Christmas Day as I watch 2023 loom. My calendars are bought & on the desks getting marked up as I annotate my future.

Thank heaven the tinny Hallmark carols will stop & the simplistic plots morph to other characters who might have some reality-based story, tho my wishes on this may not come true. It would be far worse to have to overhear CNN all day.

Thank heavens I can live more fully as my body reaches a slow-down time & I push harder despite that every day. Thank all I can work out my mini-gym routines & eat fresh salmon & soon visit the beach & haunt the library & look for a place of my own come Spring. I tried the roommate bit & found I’m still not all there with it & I do better closed up in one room alone.

I’ve ordered new pens. I have a plethora of paper left over from overproduction of all kinds. I am still mostly focused on finding the humor in it all & have a March invitation to do stand-up where I work. I’m re-learning web design in a major way. I’m no longer hungry for stuff tho I love yard sales, garage sales, flea markets…but now I collect only some few items if anything at all. A blouse that doesn’t fit, a book I donate right off elsewhere. I’ve learned it’s not about possessions for me & sparsity works best.

I look forward to this new life in different-from-ever-before surroundings.

My split shift ends: time for what my dear friend calls “second sleep.” It’s Christmas Day 2022, 1:51 a.m. o’the clock. The heater blows strangely cool-feeling air & my eyes want to see what dreams live behind them when closed.

Good night, good morning, good God. Amen 2022. The blessings of the New Year attend.

Love,

Carol