As I was celebrating New Year's Eve at a friend's house, some of the residents on his street were putting on quite a fireworks show. We watched, and set off sparklers, and rang in the new year with good cheer. Then we went inside to watch my friend show off some minecraft mods. About twenty minutes after midnight we heard a loud thud, sounds of a dog in great distress, and a car maneuvering. As we got outside, the car peeled off down the road and we saw a dog lying in my friend's yard, inside the fence. I'm not sure exactly what happened but it was clear someone had hit this dog and then driven off. It turned out to belong to the next door neighbor, and we spent some time helping him to figure out what to do. We couldn't tell she (the dog) was dead, odd though it must sound, so we helped him get her in the car and he took her to a veterinary E.R. with my friend's dad riding along to keep him level. It was a lost cause, but mercifully a veterinary clinic is better prepared to help with handling the mortal remains of our four-legged friends; it's been so rainy here where I live that most people's yards are little better than bogs right now, so burial would have been a problem.

I recount this story for a reason, which is that I am a firm believer in signs and omens. I consider this to be a powerful one, though not necessarily a sinister one. There used to be a well-known concept called a memento mori, which means "remember that you can die". Though contemplation of death is its usual meaning, along with connotations of the eternal, I take a different approach to it. I consider it a reminder along the same lines as the saying " The trouble is, you think you have time."

Of course this is referring to the idea that there is time to waste. I've been becoming more and more aware this year that I don't have time to waste, because I keep allowing it to be wasted and it keeps making me unhappy and interfering with things I say I want, but lack the discipline (or something) to bring to fruition. This is kind of a wake up call for me though, unmistakably, and one I'm exceedingly grateful for though I am sorry it took something so extreme to get my attention.

So I'm actually making resolutions this year, but I'm doing it in a different way. I'm choosing to release some things from my experience, in order to make room for the things I want to have. I'm choosing to reflect on what the year has taught me. I'm choosing to set highly specific, achievable goals for the next twelve months so that I can measure the growth I am striving to achieve. Lastly, I'm setting down definite things I'm looking forward to, some of which I must bring about and some which will happen regardless of my efforts, so I have something to keep me going when things get hard. If anyone cares to see all of this, I'm going to be posting it in a seperate, follow-up journal.

For the last several years I have resolved to make the current year the best one I've spent on earth to date. I want to say that I've accomplished that, in spite of the fact that the years I've been making this resolution have been challenging in the extreme. I feel like making that resolution is challenging the universe to hit me with its best shot. Since I started this tradition in 2011, I've rescued my house twice, lost a dear friend, floated my family while our primary income earner was out of a job, gained two nephews, exited an eight year relationship, lost eighty pounds... the list goes on and on like that, situation after situation testing me, refining me, proving to me that I am made of sterner stuff than I ever realized.

I can't help feeling that I've been utterly wasting my time by allowing myself to believe I'm terribly fragile when the truth is clearly that I'm a diamond who thinks it's made of glass just because it has flaws and impurities.

But then again, it wasn't a waste if that's what it took for me to arrive at that conclusion.