Happy. New. Year.

Happy New Year folks!
Here we are birthed naked and shiney into a whole new year! A whole new (symbolic) life! Why do people always make those grandiose "resolutions?" Because we are symbolic beasts. We love the idea of a new beginning; and new chance; new lease on life; starting over; born again..... all these ideas for what is really a imply means of keeping track of time.
I have a secret I am going to share with you folks, shhhhhh, it's not really a new start.
Nope. Sorry to bust that bubble. It's still the same old you, that you were born with. The same nasty habits, same smelly feet. To quote Mr. Miyagi "Same, same."
But what is different, is our approach to the shiney new calendar on the wall. Don't misread, I think it is extremely important to mark the turning of a year. We have to be made aware of the passage of time. Otherwise, we'd never get anything done. It is important to be aware that time does "keep on slipping, slippin, slippin-into the future."

Last night marked the first year that my husband and I kept our son awake to ring in the new year. He was all hopped up on sugar and ready to drink his sparkling cider and go to bed by 11:20. We convinced him to stick it out to see the shiney ball drop, and he did.
It was a new thing for us. New, shiney and new. Our son. Not a baby anymore. Toasting in the new year with us. I had cried earlier in the evening at something I'd said to him, that made me realise he isn't a baby anymore. It hurt. My baby is not a baby anymore. Such a sad realisation for a parent. All that sweetness, and little preciousness is just gone. It's like you wake up and it's gone. But in that is a newness, a newer sense of reality. Older and more of a smartass yes, but special in it's own right. We rang in the New Year with our son. It was special.
So even though we are all still the same, there is newness.