Alternatives

My jury is still out on the theories of alternate or parallel universes; but sometimes the thought that there is another me out there somewhere having a much more fulfilling life is the only thing that keeps me going.

.

Happy New Year?

or as I like to think of it, "Happy Day to Distract Us From It Being Winter."  Must be the Roman in me, I've never been able to reconcile a new year in the winter.  For me, a new year starts in the spring, that's when the new beginnings are, not now when everything is dormant and waiting.  (It doesn't help that my birthday is in spring, thereby throwing more rebirth into the mixture.)

 I don't put much stock into a number on a page; it can set one up for failure.  There can be so much pressure to put too much emphasis on today as a fresh start.   A fresh start can happen any time a person invests in themselves; the date on the calendar is irrelevant.

No resolutions for me; perhaps some intentions.   For example; living life as it is intended to be lived, with joy instead of sorrow.

Another intention:  to empower myself for making it through the hells of my life instead of seeing myself as weak for having experienced them.   I spent most of last year telling myself, "I have been through worse."   True though that is, I wasn't giving myself enough credit.  I was still seeing those experiences as events which excluded me from life instead of being the moments that were my life.  They were not experiences to be ashamed of, but instead, they were experiences to be acknowledged and stood upon as a monument to survival.

Stephen Sondheim hits this out of the park in his song, "I'm Still Here" from "Follies."

Good times and bum times,
 I've seen them all and, my dear,
I'm still here.
Plush velvet sometimes,
Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
But I'm here.

The song continues to chronicle the ups and downs of a lifetime of experience with the singer emphatically declaring their survival.

 Yes, 2015, I'm still here.