A Wish for the New Year

In my youth, I measured time in hours and minutes. The end of the school day felt like forever from now, and a year nearly incomprehensible.  

Then I began to see time in days, weeks, and years - marked by monthly bills, children’s birthday parties, and school calendars. 

Now I see the world in lifetimes. 

My grandparents grew old and died. My mother went from a 20-something year old woman raising children to a weakening white-haired great-grandmother. I’ve known myself as a child, a father, and a grandfather. I held my children moments after their birth, and later their children, too. 

With a birthday around the corner, I start 2024 on the cusp of my 50th year of life. A number that seems large, but a lifetime that doesn’t feel like it’s been very long at all. 

I often get pensive and melancholy this time of year. The ending of one year, the start of another, and a birthday within the span of a few weeks gets me thinking. This year, it has been more intense - maybe tied to a deeper examination of these past years and the trajectory of my life.

Recently, I’ve been forced to examine the heap of unrealized hopes and dreams of my life. 

I’ve been blessed to have done a number of fun, interesting, and meaningful things through the years. I am so incredibly grateful for those. Yet it doesn’t cover the fact that I’ve had more ideas, more thoughts, more goals, more projects than I could ever hope to accomplish in one lifetime. 

And now, I think, there’s a reckoning that there isn’t time enough left. That our time is limited, our capacity, too. I have to accept that most of these ideas won’t enjoy the breath of life. Most will die unrealized with me. And it’s up to me to choose each one’s fate. 

I also look back and see the trajectory of my life. I can turn and instantly see every choice and every decision, and the ways in which each of those moved my life. 

I see every mistake with clarity. I can see another choice I could’ve made. I see how often I did wrong, even when I hoped I was doing right. I can see how each helped carve the path of my life and carry the knowledge none can be undone. They are forever part of me. Even God doesn’t try to change the past, a friend once told me. 

I’ve read that one of the great sadnesses of being human is knowing that we’ll die. That one day everything we are, everything we wanted to be, every hope and dream, will end. 

We have this gift of one life. And we all, I think, want to feel that our life matters. That when it’s over we will feel some satisfaction that our brief existence had meaning and purpose. That people loved us, and that we loved them too. That we’ll be missed when our time is over. 

I sadly fear that many people don’t get to end their life with such peace. Many spend their lifetimes in the shadows of opulent wealth, just trying to scrape by. Others chase a manufactured idea of happiness that might be good for our economy but terrible for our souls. Some spend their lives feeling alone, misunderstood, and sad - seldom feeling the warmth of love and genuine human connection.   

We can do better. And I hope we will. I hope I will do better, too. 

I spent New Year’s Eve over a bonfire with one of my dearest friends. We talked about the past year and our hopes for the future.  And we set ablaze the parts of 2023 - and ourselves - that don’t belong in the coming year. It was the perfect way to turn the page on a year. 

For me, one of those parts is an internal dialogue that causes me to doubt and question myself,  which in turn leads me to hesitate when I unquestionably know the next best move. That has added to the heap of unrealized dreams, and at this point in my life I’m weary of indulging that voice. Frankly, I don’t have time enough for it anymore. 

When I reflect in whole, I feel very fortunate. I’ve filled this life with a reasonable amount of adventure and excitement. I’ve been able to see some wonderful places on this planet. I’ve been able to invest some of my time helping others in a way that is soul-filling. I have a community that feels like home. I’ve felt love and loss, joy and pain, and I’ve been blessed in a way that has allowed me to share much of my life - and my love for it - with others. 

I have people who love me, and people I get to love in return. That is, to me, the most meaningful thing of all. It is the highest achievement we can hope for in this one life. 

I hope your New Year is filled with peace and happiness and that you move constantly closer to the person you know you’re meant to be.

And I hope it’s filled with the promise of love.