Happy New Year!

Every New Year is a New Beginning

The start of a new year is like being reborn. It’s like society’s birthday. We are all entering the new year (and leaving the old year) together.

This last year especially has been hard on all of us; one of those years that touches everyone. We lost a third of a million people in the US to COVID-19, something we hadn’t even heard of at the start of the year. Many of us lost friends and family members. Many of us were hit hard financially - loss of work, loss of income, loss of business. And many of us lost friends due to unreconcilable differences of values and opinions about politics, health, race, and masks. If you’re reading this, you lived through 2020, so you know.

I acknowledge that 2020 was awful for far too many of us, but it was not my worst year of all time, and for that I am grateful. In fact, in the last twenty years, 2020 ranked number 4 or 5 on the awful year scale.

No matter the year, though, I am always optimistic when we close out one year and go into the next. The new year always feels different to me. There is something to jettisoning the last digit of the year that forever encapsulates its 365 or 6 days into its own package of experiences which immediately becomes “Last Year.” The new year is virgin. The new year is nothing but possibility. We can carry a lot of baggage with us, but for me the baggage always seems lighter and less cumbersome on January first.

I love January. I sometimes associate colors with certain months and years, and January is silver-white, bright, with no shadows. It’s clean and fresh. Unlike November and December, January has no set rituals or expectancies. The holidays are behind us, and we have an expanse of cold, clear winter days ahead, each one longer than the last. The year itself is new and unsullied. This year we can turn the corner. This year will be the one.

We need this. We need this annual ritual of molting off the shell of a year’s worth of life. A shell that is dented and scaly from the year’s knocks and blows and struggles, and shiny and iridescent from the year’s highlights and victories. The new year’s shell is soft and will allow us to grow, and in our optimism, we are renewed and ready.

This is something we need regardless of how good or bad the year was last year. We need this every year. There is something primal about living through another circuit around the sun. We have our birthdays, of course, but they are specific to us. The new year is something we experience together. No matter who and where we are, we can always say to someone “remember 2020? Oh, boy, was that a year!” To which is replied “Oh yeah, it sure was!”

We lived to tell the tale, and we are now all embarking on a new tale together.

So here’s to a new tale. A new start, whether it be a new chapter or a whole new book. Personally, I feel like I always feel in January: I believe the year will be great! And I certainly hope it will be, especially for you.

Happy new year!