the end of one year. the beginning of a new one. what is it about the changing of the calendar that invites reflection?

There's part of me that wants to resist reflection, lists, resolutions, etc altogether. I laughed and identified when I saw the following on Twitter today:

2010 is going to be a terrible year in which I fail utterly in every way, failure to successfully manage expectations included.

And yet...

I've been out of school for six years; I've mostly stopped measuring my life in semesters and school calendars, although I'm still tied to it somewhat through my violin studio calendar. Now I think in years, which means the end of one and beginning of the next is an opportunity to take a step back and see where I am.

Looking back on 2009, I had no idea what was in store for me. I started the year sick, discouraged, yet hopeful. I wrote about feeling like I was looking through a plexiglass window at life rather than fully engaging in it.

2009 definitely brought change, but not really the kind of change that you plan by coming up with New Years resolutions that come from all the places you feel like you've failed in the past year. 2009 was a year of stumbling into change. I randomly stumbled across the GAPS diet, quite possibly the most transforming thing I've come across in many years. I started it halfway through the year and in 6 months have lost nearly 50 lbs. I've also lost most of my mental fog and exhaustion and gained a new energy for living.

The plexiglass window is gone.

2010 may be the first year in a long time where being chronically ill doesn't define what I do (or don't do), how I live (or don't live.) But I'm entering "real life" again with trepidation. There is so much I want - and after three years of putting my wants on the shelf, I'm afraid. Afraid of desiring - what if I end up sick again, unable to dream much less act on those dreams? I'm afraid even to name my wants - because that makes them real, and when they don't happen the pain will be even more real than if they had remained unnamed.

I wonder what happened to the girl who thought anything was possible?

I think I lost her somewhere in the twisty turny windy roads of chronic illness, somewhere in the barely functioning survival and brain-fog that has rendered much of the last several years completely blank in my memory.

This year will be about finding her. Believing again. Wanting and making happen. Letting myself live - not "live as a chronically ill person" but just live.

A dear friend of mine gave me the word "synthesis" for 2010 - a year of coming together. All those dark days when I felt like I would never again be able to fully engage coming together with living. Shelved-wants coming together with energy and ability. Hope deferred coming together with possibility.

Sometimes, when things are very dark, all you can do is remind yourself that "this is not the end of the story." I've told myself that, time upon time, when it felt like I was losing me in the murky shadows of illness. Now that it's all "coming together" and healing is happening, I can push through those shadows and see a bit of light. It's not the end of the story; it's just the beginning.

Welcome, 2010.
Welcome, wants.
Welcome, dreams.
Welcome, living.
Welcome, being myself again.

Welcome.