Another year has come and now gone..
The Christmas experiment of taking my Bert to our home for Christmas with the family turned out very well. It was a wonderful day for all of us. All the angst and what ifs and worry about a failed dinner, confusion, anxiety and the many issues that could occur when caring for a beloved husband and father in the grips of Alzheimer disease fizzled into nothingness.
We tend to worry too much.
Now 2020 is here. Again the hullabaloo of making resolutions assaults the airwaves. I pay no attention. At the dawn of 2019 I chose the word ‘light’ to be my guiding star. I will keep it going. Heck, I may never change it!
I do believe in the yin and yang of existence. I believe we need both to keep balance. I know that without darkness, without evil we would not know light or goodness.
Of course, 2019 brought its darkness. There were many ‘firsts’ in my life that came unwanted, unbidden. There were some I eagerly embraced. Through it all the light kept on shining.
This momentous dawning of not only a new year but a new decade gives me pause as, with the help of every news medium, I am bombarded with reminders of the momentous events that happened in the last decade. There were some amazing stories both good and bad. Surely this coming decade will be an entangling of the same. After all, we know the only constant in life is change.
So here we are entering the third decade of the twenty-first century. I look back at my own third decade and realize it was a momentous one in my life. However, I have no desire to return to it. In this new decade I am looking forward, still blinded, unknowing, but hoping for the best. The future is clothed in mystery and that is how it should be.
During 2019, I learnt to not dwell too much on the ifs and what ifs. I know that life will go on as it usually does. Much will happen as the world inexorably unfolds and the history of this time is recorded. Some events will affect me personally as my own history continues. Some will affect all of us and be worthy of note because we are part of this world and part of the universe. We will laugh. We will cry. I hope the laughter is more abundant than the tears.
As Doris Day sang: “Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.”
I am also aware that each of us has the power to make a difference to many. What we do and how we do it will attest to our strength and belief in ourselves to do good or evil or do nothing at all. We just have to choose and choice is what makes us human.
My choice for the new year and the new decade is to savour the many moments of joy, no matter how small, to treat others as I would like to be treated, that all I do will be fuelled by love, to keep on learning, to live in hope and yes, to continue to seek the light knowing that the stars are brightest in the darkest night.
The Meander: I wish good Health, Joy and Peace to all. Happy New Year! Happy New Decade!
