Starting the New Year Over Again on February 1

I've always loved beginnings: New Year's Day, Mondays, early mornings before sunrise. The first day of the month is another perennial favorite. I've formed the practice of starting an entire "new life" each month, with plans to rise earlier, work harder, accomplish more on every dimension of my existence. This time, I vow to myself, I truly will "run faster and stretch out [my] arms farther." Or at least I'll do so for a few days, until the new life inevitably peters out, and I wait for the next month's new life to offer its endless possibilities.

This year my new life for January didn't just "peter out"; it imploded altogether with a heart-rending family loss, and I spent the month grieving. Grief obeys no prescribed timetable, of course, so I'll probably spend the rest of my days grieving in some sense. The death of a loved one leaves a hole in one's heart that will never be filled. 

But it's the first of February now, and I have actual work that needs to be done, and done by me. It also happens to be work I love to do. So I'm going to start doing it. A past episode of deep depression a long time ago taught me that it helps a lot to have something you actually HAVE to do. My beloved Spanish philosopher/theologian Miguel de Unamuno wrote,"Work is the only practical consolation for having been born."

So today, on this first morning of this new month, I replied to the last of the condolence cards. I started building the Moodle site for my online graduate course on Ethics and Children's Literature for Hollins University, which begins on February 10. I plan to write a poem for the Poem-a-Day group I joined with fabulous poet Molly Fisk. I'm writing this blog post right now. This afternoon I'm taking a walk with a friend down by beautiful Clear Creek in Golden. 

My (doomed) goal for 2021 was "Bliss, not Dread." My new goal for 2021 doesn't have a catchy slogan. It's just to keep on going, placing one foot in front of another, making slow quiet progress toward doing whatever I need to do. I will rely on what I call my "four pillars of happiness": writing, reading, walking, and friendship. A day is a good one if I write something, read something, walk somewhere, and spend some time with friends (email, phone calls, and ZOOM count, but in-person contact counts most - hence, the plan to walk outdoors, masked and distanced, with a dear friend today). 

If your new year is off to a rocky start, and your best-laid plans have gone agley, you can join me in starting the year over again today. Do at least something to follow through on the old plans, or make some new plans, or toss out plans altogether and just find a bit of happiness where you can. 

Your new life is waiting.