Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf Published week of December 29th, 2014

Woo hoo! The new year is almost here! Or is it, boo hoo the New Year is almost here?!

I am very conflicted about whether we should be happy that the New Year is here or sad that the old year is gone.

What does it mean when the old year is gone? It is another year of your life that you can’t get back. Depending on what kind of a year you have had, that might not be all bad but it also means you are older.

What does the New Year mean? It means that we have to find all the paper work and file taxes. It means, if we have a business we have to do more paperwork. It means we have to redo our health insurance.  When the old year ends and the new year begins it means all that paperwork has to also start over and get organized for the new year.

We make New Year’s resolutions for the New Year that most of us don’t keep, and we also resolve to not make the same mistakes in the New Year that we made the year before. We usually don’t keep that resolve either or if we do, we make different mistakes in the New Year.

I looked around on the Internet to check out some other people’s New Year’s resolutions. They made me chuckle. Have any of you ever made these resolutions? I will not bore my boss by with the same excuse for taking leaves. I will think of some more excuses. I will stop buying useless junk online. I will read the manual just as soon as I can find it. Always replace the gas nozzle when driving away from the pump. I resolve to stop poisoning my family with my cooking. These were taken from Random on Fanpop and Lifestyle online. I could probably adopt some of those for me especially the cooking one.

Looking back at the past year, for me, it has been a year of joys and sorrows. We were blessed to spend time with family and also friends we had not seen in a long time. I had three new books published. We were able to complete some long-awaited home projects such as putting my bathroom back together after a pipe-breaking disaster, shingling our garage and installing some new windows so we could be warmer this winter. There was joy being cat parents to our shysters who turn our sometimes tears into laughter.

In the midst of happiness there is always sadness. There is sadness when those you love are in pain and suffer broken relationships. There is pain because we lost many friends this year to death. There is heartache watching more people we love endure illness.  There is emptiness when longtime friends move away.  The year was a mixture of both joy and sadness, and I expect the New Year to be the same.

I have written about my evergreen tree in my yard many times. It grows tall and has more tops than an evergreen tree should have. Every year we wait to see if we are going to lose it. One year during the high winds that tore apart our town that evergreen tree took a big lean toward the ground. We could have let it go, but I begged to try and straighten it so it could stand tall and beautiful again.

Going through my many pictures I came across the picture of the leaning evergreen tree. I looked out at the tree standing tall and proud once again in my lawn. It had recovered from disaster. It may have sprouted another top over the years since I last wrote about it. Each year this tree adds to its branches. Each summer it is filled with nests from birds making it their home. It gives them warmth and comfort and cover. Each New Year so far, this tree has weathered the storms. Looking at my tree imperfect and beautiful as it is, gives me hope for the future of my imperfect resolutions and life.

Woo Hoo! The New Year is almost here. Boo Hoo! I don’t want to deal with all the paperwork. Father Time will soon hand over the duties of time to Baby New Year. You know what they say about time:

Time is like the wind, it lifts the light and leaves the heavy. — Doménico Cieri Estrada

Time is making fools of us again. — J.K. Rowling

Time is a figure eight, at its center the city of Déjà vu. — Robert Brault 

Time heals what reason cannot. — Seneca

Time is the wisest counsellor of all. — Pericles

Time is what we want most, but… what we use worst. — William Pen

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Time is money. — Benjamin Franklin

When Time is spent, Eternity begins. — Helen Hunt Jackson 

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away. — Ben Hecht 

And then of course, time marches on. March on this New Year through the thickness of life. Happy New Year.