Reflections on Another Year

It seems the older I get the faster time flies by.  Hours become days become weeks become years until life is summed up in decades.  I remember when I was young it always seemed like time stood still.  Summer vacations lasted long enough that I actually got excited about a new school year starting.  Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were filled with preparations and family gatherings, concerts and church activities, visiting Santa and shopping for gifts, always with an eye out for what I really was wishing for.  Christmas season never began before Thanksgiving, unlike today where ornaments and tinsel line the shelves amidst Fourth of July picnic ware and Halloween candy.  Where did all the wonder and awe go?  Unfortunately it went by the wayside somewhere in the transition to adulthood.  Responsibilities and obligations took precedence and the holiday seasons became shorter and more condensed.  Full time employment and having to keep up with bills just didn't allow the time off for the weeks, or months in the case of summer vacation, to savor and truly enjoy the spirit of the season.  Thanksgiving and Christmas were reduced to singular days that I felt lucky if I even had them off, part of working in a 24/7 service environment unfortunately.  And birthdays?  Oh yeah, I certainly looked forward to those every year for weeks in advance.  Growing up in Millersburg brought the benefit of having the Holmes County Antique Festival always falling on or right around my birthday, so that became my annual celebration.  When I was very young I actually thought maybe it was all put on just for me, but even in my older years it was still very special and meaningful.  All this retrospective reminiscing brings back some great memories.  So why is it that birthdays have become more of a terrible reminder of the aging process, a countdown of years left that are becoming shorter and shorter?  I know that's a negative and depressing viewpoint and I don't really mean it to be.  Maybe it's just the realist in me and the nostalgia of years past, but birthdays just seem to have lost some of their luster as time marched on.

This year has been and especially challenging one with ongoing and unresolved health issues, two hospitalizations and an extended time off work to focus on healing and recovery.  But maybe that's a positive way to approach this annual marking of the day I was born, like a blessing that the worst is behind me and the best is yet to come.  I have certainly learned a lot, have worked to take at least somewhat better care of myself, and have come through the fire stronger and more ready and able to deal with whatever life and God's plan for it have in store for me.  Being thankful for the suffering and darkness sounds pretty darn Roman Catholic I know, but if you hold to the belief that everything happens for a reason, even though it may not be immediately evident, then you should be grateful for survival and for another year conquered.  I'm trying hard to have that perspective in spite of current circumstances, semi secure in the knowledge that I'm on my way to a better year to come.  I'm also proud of accomplishments and victories this past year has yielded, like completing my undergraduate degree and advancing in my career path.  While I've had to put graduate studies aside for a while, I am also realizing I have new and exciting goals yet to be achieved and have found passion in cultivating and exercising talents and gifts that were previously unrecognized.  This blog is a great example of that.  I've discovered a love of writing and an enjoyment in expressing myself and offering a bit of who I am as a person, putting it out there for posterity and the hope that it will be appreciated and found to be helpful to someone else who might especially relate to my own experiences, thoughts and ideas.  It has also led me to think about alternative career paths and educational goals I hadn't really considered before.  I've started investigating graduate programs in communication and writing to see if that might be something I would be more interested in than the MBA degree I had initially begun.

So you see I have some pretty lofty ideas about the future and am finding a greater will and desire to forge ahead and see what this next year has to offer.  I'm beginning to learn how to take control and become the master of my own destiny, yet remaining open to and reliant upon my higher power for direction and guidance.  Some of the greatest minds and biggest success stories haven't begun until later in life.  I think it was Colonel Sanders who started his chicken business when he was 65 years young.  Dave Thomas worked for others in the restaurant business for years, including Kentucky Fried Chicken, until he decided to follow his passion and founded the Wendy's franchise.  These are a couple of pretty terrific role models that certainly give a middle aged cubicle jockey like me some hope for bigger and better things to come.  I've written previously about experiencing a lifetime of failures and unfinished business, or at least that's how I used to view it.  I was struck the other day by a posting on Facebook that simply said "Failure isn't the opposite of success but rather part of success!"  Pretty profound don't you think?  And then I came across the John Lennon quote in the attached image.  First and foremost it really spoke to me since I'm working on loving myself, and secondly John and I share the same birthday so I feel there's some sort of cosmic bond between us.  So here's to the process of closing the chapter of the past year and looking eagerly forward at the possibilities the year to come has to offer.  Rock on Libras, and happy birthday to me ... 48 years young!