Lucky 13

New Years Eve front row downtown Music City!

Well here we are - in the words of my idol Celine Dion via her most magical Christmas album - another year has gone by (and if you didn't have that musical snack on repeat since Halloween, shame on you). Another Christmas season passed, another anticipatory (and unexpectedly VIP) New Years Eve countdown commenced and another delicious cheese ball (or five) consumed. And now it's January.

I have a love / hate relationship with January, minus the love part. We're typically not friends because January can be a real bummer, and well, quite frankly I just don't like bummers. In January, when it snows, it does not mean Santa is peeing magical snowflakes. It means mother nature is icing over my heart. When cookies are in the office, it does not mean "EAT ME! Tis the season, your heart will grow three sizes bigger"- it means "back off lady, stop hoarding food or else your ass will grow three sizes bigger." When I'm at my desk pretending I'm auditioning for American Idol, it means my playlist has to regrettably change from my Celine Dion Christmas mix to just - Celine Dion: Greatest Hits (minus the french songs I have trouble lip synching). 

AND despite the Mayan's predictions to the contrary, it also means the world did not actually end and so now there are some things I'm going to have to do, such as:

1. Stop spending money as if the world is going to end
2. Stop drinking wine as if the world is going to end
3. Throw out the packets of moon food my mom gave me "just in case" the world was going to end
4. Get a hair cut - since it's been since June and my ragged split ends are sexy only if the world is coming to an end and I'm running through the rubble in a fancy braid like that chick in the Hunger Games
5. Stop eating everything in sight since the "stock up in the event of world starvation" rationale no longer pertains
6. Continue to pay my exorbitant rent (hence #1)

Stand down. I'm not about to jump out a window. Looking back, I cannot believe how much in my life has happened for the better since January of last year. People, places and things fill each square on my calendar and spark vivid memories of not only what I did, but how much I grew through those experiences. If you had told me then where I would be now, I would have laughed at you, and maybe thrown up a little - in part, to preempt some of those hangovers, but mostly because I am not sure I would have thought I could handle it all.... but I did. And there is a lot of hope in that.

Okay - let's get real - its not like I traveled to the moon, had a sex change or overcame Ebola but in my little snow globe life, let's just say, shit shook up this year. And in the words of Taylor Swift it was happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time - miserable and magical... (oh yeahhAH). (If you don't have THAT musical snack playing on repeat you're also missing out, and I might have to reconsider our friendship). 

I know its all so cliche - a new year brings endless possibility, new beginnings, new hope, fresh start, blah blah blah.... vomit. And if I never have to endure the onslaught of January advertising for match.com followed by weight loss " January Jump Start" bull crap, it will be too soon. But for me, this does spark excitement in the unknown, which helps combat the overwhelming feeling that between the frigid cold and apathy / disgust toward the month of January in general, life sucks.

It is bittersweet and even exciting to tuck that calendar away, in hopes of truly letting go of the bitter and keeping the sweet close to heart. Because with that comes the understanding that I am embarking on a year that I will look back on with the same amazement of how intimately and sometimes mysteriously God works in my life.

And it means I will have accomplished this exciting feat:  My New Years Resolution to participate in a flash mob and somehow get Taylor Swift to see this little gem:



HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!