Musings of an Aging Nobody

It’s windy.

I woke up this morning to find a Christmas tree rolling around my back yard.

I knew it wasn’t my Christmas tree because I didn’t put one up this year.

But I have one now.

And I am guessing I also have at least one happy neighbor who I am sure had been stressing over when that tree on his curb was going to finally be picked up.

Now his stress is over. Now I can have that tree on my curb and I can stress over how long it’s going to be there and when it is going to be picked up.

 

We are already over a week into the New Year.

The New Year’s celebrations have come and gone.

And like every year on New Year’s Eve as the day slips into night, and I go to sleep, I wake up with the new dawn in the New Year having some renewed spirit.

An epiphany.

Like something is sure to change…

This year, will be, unlike any other year…

This is the year I am going to … (fill in the blank).

I have passed Go, collected my two hundred bucks and I am ready to go around again, only this time…this year,  maybe I will land on Broadway.

I get another chance to do it better. Maybe forget some pain or unpleasantness from the previous year, because that was yesterday this is today.

And for some reason, today… feels different.

 

Hope.

I wrote about Hope a couple of years ago at a time when I thought I needed to be reminded and maybe we all needed to be reminded that it was going to be okay.

But I think it may help sometimes to have these transition days like a New Year’s Day to metaphorically wipe the slate clean and start anew.

Taking a thought from Hope, I don’t know for sure if God has already revealed what is in store for me.

But here is my New Year’s epiphany…

Maybe He has?

Maybe I was right when I proposed in Hope that that I might be living my rewards already. Maybe the truth is I landed on Broadway twenty years ago and I am already living those rewards I worked hard for and prayed for.

And though I am still going to have those days when I wake up to random Christmas trees rolling around my yard, it’s okay.

This is it.

This is the year I am going to…realize that this is it!

And it is just as it should be…

 

As I thought about trying to wrap this up it occurred to me if I had to summarize 2018 in one word it would be rain.  Rain that destroyed my grass and turned my yard into mud, and kept my tomatoes from turning red.

So while at the gym this evening I listened to rain songs…Lowen and Navarro, the Jayhawks, John Hiatt.

And I settled on Hiatt to sum it up:

 

Batten down the hatches
But keep your heart out on your sleeve
A little bit of stormy weather, that’s no cause for us to leave
Just stay here baby, in my arms
Let it wash away the pain
Feels like rain

 (from Feels Like Rain, John Hiatt)

 

And once again, let our dreams continue undimmed by change, tragedy, conflict, and the tears that may be shed as a result.

 

And let it be, a happy new year.