The Last or the First

I'm sitting in a quiet living room writing what will either be my last post of 2009 or my first post of 2010 depending on how long it takes me to type it up.  The house is clean, or cleaner, anyway, and the only sounds now are the distant hum of the dryer finishing up a load of towels and the purr of the cooling fan for the CPU on the two laptops I have running, one I'm using and one I'm updating.  It's peaceful.

As is usual for me, I have all my candles in the living room lit to meet the new year with light.  I am trying to bring my thoughts together to focus on what I want for the new year, as close to making new year's resolutions as I ever bring myself.  This year, however, things are more shrouded in mist and mystery than in previous years.  What do I want 2010 to be?  Well, perhaps it would be good to think of different areas of my life and approach it from that method. So...

Home --  In the area of home this year, I'd like to spend more time in mine. I want to come home earlier so it doesn't seem that I live in my classroom.  I'd like to see my family more, do more with them.  This is going to mean putting forth some serious effort on my part to prepare meals, etc., but it will be worth it.  I don't get to see everyone that often, and I miss them.

Friends -- I want to do more with my friends, too.  I don't know that saying that I will see them on a regular basis is a realistic thing.  Our lives are so complicated now and in many cases we are now so far from each other than it is simply not possible to do things together on the spur of the moment.  I do know that I want to try to make sure that I see them more than I have done this year.  The past two years have been bad ones for that, and I know that a great deal of the reason for that lies with me.

Job -- I don't know what to write here.  I am most confused about this area.  I guess I want clarity and stability here, even if that stability paradoxically comes from complete change. 

Creativity -- I want the the wellspring of my creative soul to be cleaned out and to flow again.  I think about the artesian well that sits on our property.  From time to time, it silts in and has to be dug out.  Right now, stress, lack of time, and every other conceivable thing are silting up my creative output in every area: writing, crafting, even dreaming it seems.  Somehow this year, I want to enable that clear cold water to bubble up and give life back to my life again. 

Love -- (and as I just saw the clock change, Happy New Year to You) -- I find myself with no wishes and no plans here.  How odd.  I've been told for years now that when the right one is ready, he'll come along.  Perhaps that's true.  If so, then nothing I do will hurry that moment.  It may also be true that there is no "right one" hovering in the wings for me.  That thought doesn't scare me like it used to, to be honest.

The silence has been broken by my neighbor's random firecrackers.  The new year and new decade are officially here.  It will be interesting to look back in a year to see if any of these things have made a difference.