Saying Goodbye to 2014

On the very last day of any year, you can almost always find me in a quiet place, feeling both sentimental and somber. For as long as I can remember, the New Year's holiday is  a day combined with reflection, self-loathing, and pep-talks about getting all the things I got wrong, right in the next year.  As appealing as fireworks and champagne and sequined sweaters sound on such a night, I am usually feeling more sullen than celebratory. That's one of those things I wish weren't true about me.  I wish I were the fancy New Year's Eve party-thrower type, but instead I'm the "I don't even feel up to going to the party I was invited to" kind of person. 

True to form, the last few days I have been my usual, quiet end of year self thinking about the year behind me.  The highs, the lows, things accomplished and achieved.  Things, moments, people - some found, some lost.  An extraordinary journey with God.  Memories made, tears cried, laughter and so much goodness that I'm ashamed that I don't only feel grateful on this day.  Because there was so much goodness.

It's been a difficult, blue, gut-wrenching December and I am ready to pack up my decorations and breathe some of the new year air into my house and start over again.  I am also very aware though, that I'm not finishing my year as I had hoped I would.  And perhaps because I'm in this familiar place, it's why I never feel up to partying and celebrating at the end of any year.  It's like the ending of the year means I ran out of time for something or that I failed because it didn't get done or finished or fixed.  So I punish myself instead of celebrating progress or beauty or small moments that made up one incredible something.

Because my December has been full of enough self-contempt and sorrow, I am trying to pick myself up on this very last day and in these final moments of 2014 and celebrate some of what this year was - it's beauty, it's precious moments, it's places of progress and goals achieved and pieces of my story lived well.  Perhaps there will always be unmet goals, unfulfilled desires and failures in every year.  Maybe I need to be more accepting of that, accepting of myself as I am. 

Some visible reminders to me of a year full of all of those things....

 

Much to celebrate.  Much to smile about.  So, so much to be thankful for. 

 

Tonight, I will be ringing in the new year with my little family.  We'll make a yummy meal, play Twister and count down the seconds until midnight when we find ourselves in yet another new year. Another beginning and a continuing of where I am.

 

Wishing you a Happy New Year.  May you find many, many things to celebrate as you say farewell to what was and welcome in 2015.