The Hope of 2014

The coming of a new year somehow seems to lessen the struggles of the past year somewhat. Though hardly wiping the slate entirely clean, it is rather a time in which one feels renewed to start a new year having lived much and learned much. It starts when Christmas comes. Everyone seems to slow down and start thinking about what they have – or have not – achieved in the past year. Hopes for the new year pulls harder at the heart every day from then. The New Year is in sight! A new beginning. A few days in which you again feel that anything and everything is possible.

A Blank Slate (of Sorts)

In my case, I get a new diary (a blank slate, if you want), a new notebook and new calendar. Today, when I write this, the diary and calendar is no longer blank. Birthdays and appointments are already filling the blocks and pages – a reminder that time will not stand still. Yet, I also take this time to look back at my life and not just the year. I think of loved ones lost and of new friends found. The past year put our whole family through its paces will illnesses and injuries (I would rather not spend a month on crutches again, for one). It was a year which flitted by far too quickly. But it was a full year.

Hope Renewed

It was also a year in which friends got married, or got pregnant, or had children. Children grew up, made mistakes and didn’t want to listen to caution. It was the year in which I was suddenly one of the “elders” the “kids” didn’t want to listen to. But it was also the year in which friendships deepened, hope and faith was found or renewed, and hurts got healed. We’re all left with scars – some faded, some fresh – but I hope that, this year, the hope with which we start 2014 will not extinguish before the end of the month. May it be renewed time and again so that, when we close the diary on 31 December, it is a book we want to keep forever instead of throwing it away or hiding it at the bottom of a dusty drawer.

 Carpe Diem! Make your lives extraordinary!