2013

I don't normally do "New Year" the way that most people typically do. Same as I don't do "Christmas" the way most people typically think it should be done.

Both of these events are my least favourite of the year. It is the darkest, deepest and heaviest days of the entire year. If you have plans, more often than not they have to be aborted at the last moment due to weather issues and you have disappointment in not doing what you planned or prepared to do.

In my case this year was the first time in 6 years I was once again working for a church as organist/choir director. I had 6 years of forgetting what it was like to be stuck sitting in a church hour after hour on Christmas Eve then getting home late only to get up early again and put a fake smile on my face to go see family. I'd rather honestly just sleep the day away. Always have been like this according to the family. Dad is a huge Christmas geek and he would have to come in and wake me up. Couldn't care less for Christmas even as a child. Not for any traumatic event or anything that I know of. Just because it's not for me.

I also don't understand why we have to wait for a specific day to give something to someone. If they need it and you can give it to them, why wait? If they want it and you can give it to them, DO it! If I need something, I go out and get it. I'm not going to be looking at something in April and then go, oh...but it's not Christmas so I'll wait. It's not for another 8 months and I'll need something else by then anyway!

I've come to realize New Year celebrating is not for me either. My family were not fans of it and I don't ever remember doing a new year party until I moved out of the house to Halifax. Then I did it once, nearly froze to death and didn't find it was worth the effort or pain, so didn't bother to do it again.

Again, I don't understand why people have to wait for a specific day to make changes. If you are wanting to make a change, MAKE THE CHANGE! NOW! Don't wait for a week or a month or however long until January 1st because the vast majority thinks of it a the only day to make resolutions. That just doesn't equate in my brain. If you want to make a change, make it. Resolve to be better than what you are right now and make this as your day 1 whether it is day 1 of the calendar year or not. Take some responsibility already and don't be a mindless zobie following the commercialized masses.

I also don't want to tempt the fates. I will refrain from doing what a lot of people have done yesterday and today - state that 2013 has to be better than 2012. That's a big ole tempt of the fates and usually, they are far better at accepting the challenges than we are.

My 2012, well it's been epically bad. Very few good things happened and then they all seemed to come at once in the last 10-12 weeks of the year. That's a really hard way to live. Barely breathing with a thought at the start of the day that "today will be better" and then after about 2 hours I would be beaten back down in to a fetal position in my heart, mind and spirit and just wanted to go back to bed. Instead, I plastered a fake smile on my face and put one foot in front of the other. Very few people the wiser.

October 2012 brought massive changes to my life on the positive side of things. I started to work with new people, in new places on things that I am familiar enough with to know what to do and how to do it well, but far enough removed to not have been in a rut or disliking it. I started these things out of necessity, but they have become more of a sanity saver than I ever thought possible.

October 2012 also brought a health crisis. What was planned surgery took a twist. They couldn't do all that was planned and for a period of 5 weeks I didn't know if I had cancer or not. It wasn't something I talked about. Not giving it a voice meant not giving it energy to be. Looking back, I was obsessed with it until I knew whether I did or didn't have it. It was then that I made decisions that made changes that have ended up making me happier. Many people - most of them people who have known me for a LONG time but I had kept a bay for that period of time ended up floating back across my path and ALL have commented that they are pleasantly surprised to see the old me creeping back in again. Everyone had noticed I had shut down and shut off. Pulled away and changed in an attempt to be or fit something that I just am not. It has been the validation that I needed to know the decisions and changes that I decided to make in the throes of facing an unknown result were correct.

It also has shown me that more changes are to come.

I have not been happy. For a LONG time. There have been a wild amount of memes floating around facebook recently (or maybe they are just jumping out at me more) about how if you are not happy, that's your choice. How one must make changes to become happy. I'm happy in a few things, but I'm mostly unhappy with my life. I feel like I have a whole lot of changing to do in 2013 if I am ever to be truly happy. I don't know what they all are, mind you. I just know that there will need to be a ton of them, that they will be difficult and probably shocking to many and that I can't take on what other people think because that never makes anyone happy. I know that I will be labeled selfish and ungrateful. I already have been. But, the reality is, I can only do what I can do to make me happy. In speaking with a dear friend and colleague of mine on Christmas Eve and she announced that she left her husband of 9 years because she realized she was too young to be so miserable that I too am too young to be this unhappy all the time. So, if there is a resolution I am making on this commercialized day 1, it is to do what makes me happy, even if it means others are unhappy.

As a friend of mine posted this morning: "Happy New Year and Happy New Life!"