New Years Day, 2011

I'm a New Year's Day kind of girl.

I have always been the type of person who loves New Years Day, full of hope, promise, and resolutions that I absolutely, positively intend to keep each year that I make them. Every January 1st is the start of the year I will lose that last ten pounds, find the love of my life, get married, have children, and actually finish writing that infamous novel I've been working on since the tender age of five. I will be fulfilled in all aspects, being a happier, more congenial, less negative, and all around better adjusted and somehow wiser on the ways of the world. I will also faithfully update my blog that has literally never had more than three entrances in the course of the previous year.

And, like the other 4 billion people who make resolutions, on December 31st of the same year I find myself exactly the same as the year before, without much difference, perhaps having learned a few choice lessons, but conveniently and comfortably aloof to the truth that I have let myself down, once again.

So when I woke up this morning, bright eyed and ready for the year ahead, it surprised me to find that I was not filled with usual vigor of the New Year. Even more surprising, I was not filled with the regret of having let a perfectly good year pass me by. It took me quite some time, laying there cozy in my bed, my husband and dog both snoring away next to me, to realize why.

2010 was a great year for me. It was the year I married the love of my life. I established myself in Chicago, my new home town, with a great job and a circle of new friends that I've grown increasingly close to. I had enough money to actually live the life that I wanted, flying home several times, visiting my friends and family, going on vacations that I had only dreamed about before, and spending many long nights taking drawn out walks with John talking about the future and what it will hold for us. I watched fireflies in the summer, and trudged to work through the snow in the winter. I learned to knit, I ran ten miles, I read the classics, and I wrote nearly half of that long-awaited novel.

So, okay, I didn't lose the last ten pounds. I didn't finish my novel. I didn't have any children. I didn't end the year somehow wiser to the ways of the world and in possession of the answers to all life's mysteries.

So what.

I realized something this morning, a year passes quickly, and sometimes you learn something from it, and sometimes you don't. But fulfillment, wisdom, and happiness don't stem from the events that occur over it. They come from something much more momentous then the passing of a decade, it comes from just letting all of that go and living your life. Things will come when they do, they will pass us by when the time's not right, and at the end of the day you end up exactly where you're supposed to be.

Is that a grand statement, the kind that belongs in the same category as my previous resolutions? Sure. But it's also the truth.

So, to each of you, my dear friends, I wish you a fabulous 2011, may it be filled with grand statements, momentous revelations, and dreams come true. But may it also be filled with little moments, insignificant occurrences, and long, drawn out walks filled with talks of the future and fireflies.

To you, to me, to us, and to a very happy New Year.