Hello, 2016

“I think of each day as a gold coin that you are required to trade for something. You’ll never get that coin back, so whatever you trade it for had better be worth it.” Raymond Barfield, MD, in the January 2016 issue of The Sun

Hello, 2016, I’m glad you’re finally here. Generally, I don’t celebrate this changing of the guard, this exchange of one calendar with lovely photos for a new calendar with equally lovely photos. But this year I’ve been waiting for you, watching through the front curtains, as it were, anticipating the ritual of your arrival so that there could be a jumping off place, a demarcation point for the shift in forward progress I’m about to make.

The previous year—I don’t want to name names, and I know it’s crass to speak openly of exes—had me stalled, blocked, detoured off the wide path of my journey and lost down a single-track trail of tears.

I’m back.

Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m marching forward with enthusiasm. Yet. But I’ve just come blinking into the sunshine from the dark woods, and my feet are firmly back on the path that will lead me forward a bit further each day. I know I’m going to move slowly at first, but I’ll gain momentum with each step of renewed effort.

I want our time together, though brief, to be memorable, and for that to happen, I know I need to be productive, to use my gifts, humble and few as they may be, to make a difference in the world, no matter how minute or seemingly insignificant or isolated that difference may be. Last year, I lingered in “the waiting room of the world,” as C. S. Lewis put it. This year, I want to trade each gold coin, as Dr. Barfield describes, for pursuits that have me smiling, not wincing, as I lay my head upon the pillow each night.

Thanks for showing up, 2016, and not a moment too soon.