It wasn't only that the time seemed to pass slowly; a lot happened during this year. Not in terms of monumental, life-changing, world-altering events, really - although there has been plenty of turmoil in our world lately (not just this year) - but rather in the commonplace occurrences of everyday life. It wasn't that many things happened to me, but that many things happened for me.
This year was a fight. It was not a particularly hard one - just a long one. While things did not always flow smoothly, they still flowed; things happened, and much was accomplished - but slowly, laboriously. The fight was not one of strength, but of endurance. It was a year-long battle, tackled deliberately, with determination and perseverance, moment by moment. It was taking life one step at a time; putting one foot in front of the other.
And with each incremental, trudging step, a journey was made. After all, in the wise words of Lao Tzu,
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single
step."
Finally, here we are - December 31st, 2017 - with but a single step to go. Our 365-day journey is about to come to an end. We each have fought our own battles, marked our own paces. We have reached the end of this year, ready to begin again in the morning.
Yet, as we stand here, at the end of this journey - on the other side of the fight - something has changed; something feels different than it did at the start, before that first step. It seems that we are not quite the same as when we started. The journey has changed us, for better or worse.
Perhaps, we are weary from the journey; bruised and scarred from the fight.
Perhaps, we are entering the new year a little more broken, and a little more wary, than we were before.
Perhaps, we leave this year behind with tinges of sorrow and grief, mourning the pieces of the past that we cannot reclaim.
"We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we've wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne."
Maybe the arduous journey has taken a toll. Even so, my sincere hope is that, where life has taken, it has also given.
Hopefully, the challenges of this year have made us mightier, as we bravely rose to meet them and found that, despite our fears, we could overcome.
Hopefully, the drawn-out nature of this year's challenges has given us the gift of endurance, emboldening us with newfound tenacity and the will to fight, as we refused to relent in the face of difficulty.
Hopefully - somewhere within the moments, the footsteps, the lengthy days of 2017 - we have learned to never give up.
This year was long. It was challenging. But I won't forget what it has taught me. It has encouraged me to endure and strengthened me within.
And, on the eve of the new year - January 1st, 2018 - I not only look back with a sense of (weariness and) accomplishment, but I look forward with hope.
Here's to living another year of hard, beautiful life.
Here's to never giving up.
And here's to 2018.
"For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne."
Happy New Year!
-R
