I just finished packing up the last of the Christmas decorations. I love Christmas - Mark often comments that our house looks like "someone puked Christmas everywhere" because I tend to perhaps overdo it on the decorating. (As if...) We had such a wonderful Christmas (loud, too, if you watched our video), but I woke up this morning...ready. Ready to let Christmas 2008 become a treasured memory instead of hanging on to it through garland, candles, and the trees. Ready to face 2009.
The boys and I hit Lowes this morning and filled our cart to overflowing with plastic bins, and I just spent the last few hours carefully packing away our holiday. It felt so good. I don't think it would have felt good a week ago, or even a few days ago. Today was definitely the day.
I realize I have hit that spot several other times in my life. I feel very fortunate - for the most part I have always been ready to close a chapter of life and start a new one when I needed to. I spend very little time mourning the past, and I always seem to look forward to the next great thing. This time though I have no idea what will be next. Of course, realistically speaking no one really knows for certain what the next chapter of life holds, but we often fool ourselves into believing we do, don't we? I have to admit, perhaps for the first time, that I don't honestly have any idea what this next year will be like for me.
But even though I have no idea, I am still somehow looking forward to this new year, this new chapter. I am just really grateful to be able to look forward. I love the perspective age and experience have given me. I appreciate the gift of tomorrow and I only look back to enjoy sweet memories. I feel free to forgive and learn from my past mistakes, and look ahead knowing I am a little bit smarter and I see things a bit more clearly.
I have no idea how life will be the next time I open the Christmas bins, but I think I am ready.
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