2009.

So I found myself suspended from work over the next few days because I forgot an important scheduling deviation. Oops. My mother died last October, and her funeral utterly destroyed my finances. Sigh. Shana and I are in our latest breakup, and while I think there's strong potential for us to remain close, this time it feels like the big one. Ouch. I learned recently that there's a warrant for my arrest out in New Jersey, with hefty fines, because of a very old driving snafu. Yipe. I got robbed on Monday when someone I thought I trusted took some cash from my wallet. Grr. I may have kidney stones, and there's this tooth that's really annoying me. Damn. There's some local Craft "community" stuff that leaves me shaking my head and clutching my heart. Jeez.

But you know what? I'm ok.

I'm ok because I've dealt with so much angst and grief and stuff in the last year or so, that now I'm just laughing about it, rolling with it, and adjusting my plans and strategies to simply accomodate all these turns of fate. Adapt and overcome, adapt and overcome, adapt and overcome.

So what am I doing?

Completely on impulse, I'm roasting a duck with apple-raisin stuffing. I'm going to pop a bottle of Henkell Trocken open, and Aphrodite and me are going to enjoy an intimate moment at the house shrine. I'm getting leathered up and going to dance my ass off at Savage Garden. I'll finish with a few pints with friends at the Done Right Inn. There's a party tomorrow. Then, I'll be starting this coming year with a focused, persevering, joyfully successful series of accomplishments on my roster of healthy and happy goals.

I may go on walkabout in February. I'll be riding horses in the spring. I'll be diving in the summer. I may be in Cuba in the autumn. By next winter, I will have Canadian dual-citizenship.

When the universe unfolds before you in a way you'd rather prefer it didn't, often all it takes is a shift in perspective to find the nuance that opens you to possibility. Find the stillness. Be in the moment.

My 2009 wish to you is this: may this coming year bring you shameless living, unselfconscious laughter, brazen success, incredible sex, loving kindred, crowded kitchens, good books, and the pleasure of having been heard, understood, and appreciated by those you love.

And whenever it doesn't, just adapt and overcome.