terrshee's Diaryland Diary

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New Years, A Day Late

My usual New Year's ritual is go through all my accumulated paperwork from the prior year and sort and delete in preparation for doing my taxes. Yeah, exciting, I know, but it always helps me feel like the old year is disposed of and that I'm ready for the new one.

Of course that didn't happen yesterday because I spent much of it in one form of transportation or another getting home from California. The trip was a miracle of smoothness compared to trying to get there.

But I'm exhausted from dealing with time changes and lack of sleep, and I feel lousy because of eating at odd hours and eating that which would not normally be part of my diet, and I have that peculiar sense of restlessness that comes from having my addictive tendencies aroused and unsatistifed. It is so unpleasant to be at a fun party and then realize I'm staring at the last glass of wine in the bottle in front of me and thinking "I could have that." It never really goes away, no matter how long I'm sober. Still, the wedding and reception were really fun and this was but a minor distraction on a fantastic day.

As much as I loathe the thought of going back to work tomorrow, I have to admit the the return to routine after all the holiday disruptions has some appeal. Now if I could only get the home selling/buying on track, I might get my sense of control and order back. And I do dread getting hit by the news from the outside world soon; I lay in bed last night thinking about the multitude of good things in my life when so much of the world is suffering from complete loss.

Anyway, part of that is the I'm now a month away from my 50th birthday, and I plan it to be a celebration of life in general and my life in particular, and I want to use it to get on track for the years remaining to me. I'll never be a person of greatness, but I can be a person of completeness. There really aren't that many things I'd hoped to accomplish in my time. In fact, I think the only abiding ambition I've had is to write a book. I just want to be decent to the people around me, show the love and respect I have to those who love and respect me in turn, and not be a useless lump in the greater scheme of things. This I interpret as doing what is given to me to be done, like the simple matter of getting up in the morning and doing my work well, and being content that this is so. I'm a firm believer in Joseph Campbell's "follow your bliss" philosphy. And my bliss is in writing and working. That's not so bad, is it?

7:53 a.m. - 2005-01-02
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past tense - always tense - future tense