Happy New Year, everyone. Not that we’ve had the best start so far. In fact it almost looks like more of the same. Has there been another month crowbarred into 2020 after December but before January? That’s how it feels at the moment, just a continuation of the old year.
But we must try to look forward and not back. Time to be positive!
Janus is the Roman god who has two faces, enabling him to look forward and backward at the same time. It is often (possibly erroneously) supposed the month January is named after him, poised as it is at the beginning of the new year yet with the old year still very much alive in our memories.
Once Christmas is over and the new year begins to beckon, we are seemingly in both places at once. 2020 still dominates our thoughts and yet, 2021, looms on the horizon, bright, shiny and new, full of possibilities, an unwritten page.
So we look forward and back at the same time, for the moment torn in our thoughts and plans, divided in our dreams, not yet able to completely commit to the new, the undiscovered, and still holding onto all that has happened during the miserable twenty (or so it seems) months of 2020.
We long for a fresh start. If 2020 is the experienced adult, bent by experience, then 2021 is the innocent, hopeful child. The joyous optimism of leaving the past behind and reaching forward to something new and good is irresistible. And so we plan and and resolve to make changes in our lives. I am keeping my list of resolutions simple this year: I am going to write more, read more and enjoy life more.
Good riddance, 2020. Thank God you’re here, 2021!
***