It was a very Good Year.

I dread change.  I welcome different seasons, I embrace gradual stepping into position, but sudden change?  Not happy about it.

I dread as well, my New Year's post.

Not because I hate the year change.  A day is a day is a day... to brutally misquote and plagiarize Gertrude Stein, but because this year, there was so much to change and adapt to that I simply didn't cope with it as well as I lead people to believe.

I like drama, not the stupid Hallmark Shows where the main character suffers insufferably (sic) for ages while realizing that "better things" will come and meanwhile is introduced to a series or pitfalls that simply would break anyone.  No, I mean drama as in acting, pretending showing different faces and characters.

Isn't that what we are though?  Characters in a never ending play  that is life?  In the words of the timeless bard:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

This year I gained and I lost.  I lost my comfort zone on various levels, but I gained experience, friends and totally unexpectedly, Family.  I am grateful for said changes, who am I grateful to?  WHO cares really.  I feel that change was needed and while it definitely was more than I bargained for, it is that way all the time, with life of course.  You choose a price and that price is paid in full, but whatever choice you made, you may have bargained for a better deal.

“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;

For Life is just an employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.”

― Jessie B. Rittenhouse 

And even failing to ask for more, I was given more than needed, a wonderful family, ample time to enjoy it.  Great friends and a stable position in my current job.

Very important people were no longer with me by the middle point of the year, and others came and went as side-characters in the charade and performance which my own performance was employed, but others?  Others have been luminaries, the beacons of hope and preferred roads where the current story travels, as best described by their own actions and  selfless behavior in which I was involved and amazed by.

This evening I made a minor error when filling my daily soundtrack, the music that I choose to be an example of how I feel, and left a song there that blew open the floodgates of feelings and restraint I had, so far, been able to keep in check, it's a Duet, a weird one to be sure where Robbie Williams plays half an age and Frankie (the Chairman of the board no less!!) fills in for the later age.

 I am closer to 35 than to 21, and I feel that my life is fuller than expected.  A lot of chance occurrences have given me experiences worth mentioning, and tales to be yarned and composed still.

I look forward to being 35, I have plans and ideas, and means of change.  Do I want to be a catalyst for change?  

Let this year help me decide, for now my background performance in life seems to be stepping closer to the limelight, a more robust character in a performance that will culminate in whisper at the end.