A new year. An entire year of fresh possibilities. It stretches out before me like Frost’s road; it bends in the undergrowth and I cannot fathom what lies beyond that bend. I begin day one of this New Year with trepidation and hopefulness. I have learned how much life can change in one year-in one day.
Kennedy taken from us amid the pop of gunshots in Dallas; Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon and proclaiming “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"; The American military pulling out of Vietnam, and our prisoners of war, who had been held for years, at long last walking off that airplane onto United States soil; Nixon’s resignation, Reagan’s near miss with an assassin’s bullet, the Rodney King verdict and the violent aftermath; the Challenger explosion, the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the resulting unification of a country; the Twin Towers in New York City violently crumbling to the ground in a shattering of metal and human blood; the capture of Saddam Hussein. I could not have predcited these events. No one could have. But they happened.
On a personal level, dear friends can be seemingly healthy one day and fighting for their lives the next, our economic situation can fall and then rise again, we can trip in and out of love, our own health and quality of life can change in the blink of an eye, talents can be discovered, newly born grandchildren can be placed in our arms, we may be forced to say goodbye to loved ones we aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to, children leave home to start their own lives. All in the course of a single moment. The moments that make up our years, our lifetimes.
So, welcome 2012, whatever you may bring. I have my bitch boots on, my armor secure, my experience intact, and my heart wide open. But, nonetheless, you will surprise me.
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