Happy New Year

Happy New Year! The 50 years of life that are mine have more or less operated around academic calendars. August has always been a beginning. Last Year, I finally began to embrace the rhythm of seasons that works for me. Beginning in the cold dark winter (January), doesn’t work for me. It feels more like a pause than a start. August 1 is when things begin to ….. begin.

As a kid in Maine, when school started much later, in the month, August was the time of school shopping and often one last camping trip with my family. 

As a homeschooler with kids who were involved in a few classes at at the public schools, August was a time of making a slow beginning while I reviewed our materials and plans (and got a few of those attendance days in the record books). 

In South Carolina, school has started for teachers this week and for students next week. 

It is a New Year. I remember. I look forward. 

My Happy New Year remembers smells:  new pencils, crayons, and notebooks; new books and old text books (remember when the teacher used to hand out the textbooks); brown paper bags and scotch tape being cut and folded to keep the book ‘covered’ – and to give us a place to doodle when doodling was necessary. 

My Happy New Year remembers feels: anxiety of where will I fit in the social structure; worry about how I look and have I chosen the right outfit and hairstyle; curiosity if there will be new students or teachers; resolve to master my subjects and take neater notes. 

My Happy New Year also feels a bit like beginning and a bit like please end soon. I sit up straight. I smile in the hallways hoping for a smile back.

This Happy New Year, I have a new coaching business. I have two children working full-time, a child beginning his second year of college. Two kittens will turn one at the end of August. I wonder about meal plans and business meetings and health plans and appointments. I still worry about clothes and hairstyle. I think about writing neatly in my journals and on my to-do lists. I juggle technology. I still smile looking for connection.

My learning schedule this Happy New Year is less wrinkly and more creative. It usually includes a nap. I am working to build a four day work week practice. It revolves around my values – which infuse both my work and play. Hope, home, creativity, connection, independence, abundance, wisdom. 

What will this Happy New Year teach me? I feel the pause of anxiety and invite it to do its work but to not get in my way. I feel curiosity and expectancy. 

What do you think you will learn this new year? What do you hope is on your class list and who do you hope to meet along the way? 

Happy New Year!