{happy new year}

 {I forgot to say Merry Christmas, so Merry Christmas, too.}

I'm curled up under my covers watching the battery on my laptop drain. Wiggling my toes to keep my feet from falling asleep. Trying to be introspective without getting too mushy about it. Listening to the saddest music I can find because it makes me happy. I think.

Wading through Facebook statuses and blog posts and snarky tweets about New Year Resolutions. Considering.

Everyone seems to be either really mad at 2012 or completely in love with it. Excited for 2013 to be even half as good or aching for a new year as though that will put some kind of emotional wall between them and this past one.

And so, of course, I start thinking about the new year and the old year and what's changed and what hasn't. I scroll way back in this blog to January 1, 2012 and read:

...i want to be absolutely, honestly, seriously content with where i am, and who i am, and what and who i have. i want to sit in it like an oversized beanbag chair and enjoy just being here instead of running around, up and down the stairs looking for things that aren't even in the house.

2012 might be easy. it might be hard. good or bad or weird or fun or short or long or whatever. but i'm sure i will be much more able to face whatever it is it's going to be if i don't have my heart set on what i think it should be.

they say not to wish your life away. "be where you are".

You know how sometimes you pray that you'll learn something or that you'll grow in some way and then life gets tricky and you don't know why and then you realize that maybe it's just your prayers being answered?

So 2012 has been a year of answered prayers. Lessons learned and at least a little growth. I think.

And here's to 2013. I don't hope it's easier. I hope it's stretching and hard and beautiful in the way that those things usually are if they're handled well. I hope I grow and learn. I hope I'm strong enough to ask for lessons and then, when they come, to be a good student.

anyway, happy new year and all that jazz, you know: may you run out into the wild 2013 with your arms flailing above you and your eyes wide open, happy to be on a good, level path if you've got one, but ready to hang-glide off a cliff if that's what's in front of you. or whatever. and stuff.