Last Thoughts On 2008

Update: This was meant to be posted New Year's Eve, but apparently didn't make it out of the draft folder, which is unfortunate. In any event, a few days later, the sentiment remains the same.

Well, at long last, 2008 is wheezing it's last dreadful breaths. I touched a bit on 2008 in the post before my birthday, so I don't know that I feel any inclination to go back into any of that. Instead of recounting 2008 as an annotated list of best records, worst moments, and greatest blessings, I think that I will share a little ritual that a friend is engaging in this New Year's Eve.

Take two pieces of paper, and, on the first, write down a list of your mistakes of 2008 (Think you haven't made any? You have.); on the second piece of paper write out your goals for the coming year. The first piece of paper, this catalog of your mistakes and missteps, fold in half and cast into the ocean, a river, or a creek. Any body of water really; this is the act of releasing your errors and regrets, thus enabling you to move forward.

Now take the second piece of paper, the one that sets out what you hope to accomplish in the coming year, fold it in half, and set it alight. Let it burn to embers, and know that you have just ignited your goals, and created a metaphorical jumping off point for their accomplishment. You're free now to move into the New Year with a hand at your back, and without the hindrance of the past holding you back or bogging you down. January First may just be another date, another day on the calendar, but it is symbolic nonetheless. It can be the clean slate that so many of us want and need so badly; whatever you need to make the changes that you've been making excuses not to. Take it, run with it; it's a rare gift in a life full of debits.

Thus far, I can say that I am wholly satisfied with these last hours of 2008. I took the dog on a five mile hike into the mountains outside of Pasadena; following two and a half miles of switchbacks, and an eighteen hundred plus foot elevation gain, we ended at the ruins of a hotel that burned at the turn of the century. We looked out over the valley, a late afternoon marine layer settling in, and I thought about how wonderful it was to be alive, breathing and existing, regardless of how messy the transitory may become. This evening I spent with family; eating food, talking music, science, tv, and tech, and playing board games before we all watched the ball drop in NYC. If this last day of 2008 is any indication of the 2009 to come, I'm ready to welcome it and embrace what I have every intention of making into a wonderful year full of possibility and wonder.