By the time I started college we still didn’t own a TV set
and skating had faded out of my life, but fast forward 25 years to when Don and
I found our selves at an adult roller skating party. He could literally skate
circles around me while I had lost the skill and my confidence. It didn’t help
much that he teased me, saying I skated like a refrigerator on a dolly, “Pick
up your feet and glide!” How could I? I was sure I was going to fall, break a
hip and end up in a nursing home before I even started menopause.
Parties---I’d been to my share of New Year’s Eve parties in
the ‘60s before I met Don and in the next few years afterward. But Don didn’t
like going places on New Years Eve because, he said, the service was always bad
and the places were so crowded. And since he owned a snow plow service, we
often spent the night on snowy parking lots. One memorable night after a storm
had ended and the landscape was sparkling white and beautiful one of the other
snowplow drivers got out of his truck at midnight
and made a snow angel in the headlight beams of his truck. Before long all five
of us had parked our trucks in a circle and we all made snow angels, laughing
at our silliness. We’d never done it before---or since---but it was magically
that night to get in touch with the child in each of us.
Now that I’m a widow, there is something positive to be said
for not having to mourn the loss of a holiday tradition that rang in the New
Year in style and mayhem that included champagne and fancy dresses. Watching
Dick Clark and the crystal ball dropping at Time Squares on TV was about as
festive as we got over they years. But I do have a tradition that I’ve followed
faithfully on New Years Eve or day for over a half a century. (Wow, I’m old!) I
get my old diaries out and read random pages. This got started at a New Years
Eve slumber party when I was barely into the teens. We played a game called ‘diary
roulette’ which was a variation on spin-the-bottle. A date was called out, the
bottle was spun and where ever it pointed when it stopped that person had to
read whatever was written on the corresponding date in her diary. I remember spinning
a few tall tales on the spot, not wanting to share the words actually written
in my diary.
New Years Day is a time to make resolutions and many of my
old diaries include a list resolutions and/or grandiose introductions the way
only a youthful pen could write. I was going to make a resolution list this
year, too, until this morning when I picked up an idea from another widow’s
blog. For her second year of widowhood she had used a one word mantra instead
of making resolutions---brave---and for the coming year she’ll use ‘believe’. The
idea is to pick a word that expresses your intention for the coming year, like
an inspiration to apply to your life. I used a four-word mantra during my
caregiver days and it really helped me through a lot of tough stuff so I fell
in love with the idea of picking one word to inspire me throughout the coming
year. Therefore, I am declaring that my word for 2013 will be ‘courage.’ If you
read my last blog, a Widow’s Letter to
Myself, you’ll understand why I am embracing this word (and the Cowardly
Lion) as my 2013 inspiration and mantra. I even found a ‘courage’ charm and a
Cowardly Lion charm to wear on a chain. I love eBay. You can find anything
there.
It doesn’t matter if you follow the same tradition each New
Years Eve or you start a new one. It doesn’t matter if you laugh or cry at midnight. What matters is it’s a time for acknowledging
the power of starting anew, of making promises to your self. Call those
promises resolutions or a ‘word for the year’ but whatever you call it I hope
we all have a better 2013 than the year we’re leaving behind. ©
