First Day of the New Year

I had high hopes for the new year. Maybe I set the bar too high. I don’t know, but it started off bad. Less than an hour into it, I almost got arrested. I’m not going to get into it, except to say it was uncalled for. Then I allowed myself to get annoyed at a friend and then at Chuk. I felt mistreated and I was mad at the world.

After finally getting to bed around 5:30 am, I woke up sometime after noon and felt crappy. I was hoping the slate would be wiped clean in the new year, that I would get a fresh start, and my luck would turn around; this clearly was not happening. Then, while doing some blog surfing, I came across this post on a blog I had never been to before and something clicked.

If I was having a crappy day and was going to interpret that as another crappy year, then it was up to ME to do something about it. My life isn’t going to suddenly get better because a clock ticked over to midnight; my life is only going to get better if I make it what I want it to be.

I walked into the living room where Chuk was watching hockey and said, “Do you want to have a spontaneous adventure right now?” Both of us were in our pajamas. Less than twenty minutes later we were out the door. He said yes and we had agreed to “go to the ocean.”

We decided not to look up directions or use maps, thinking it would be more adventurous to rely solely on the compass in my car. “If we keep going east, eventually we’ll get to the ocean” I reasoned. We ended up at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware after dark, but it didn’t matter. Without the aid of maps, our route was not the most direct. Also, we took brief detours at the Annapolis State House and an ice cream parlor. In the car, we sang along to David Bowie and the Rolling Stones, played a game, talked about our goals for the new year, and watched a beautiful sunset. At the beach, we took a walk in the pitch black night. When suddenly the almost full moon appeared from behind the clouds, we danced in the moonlight. We had dinner in a seafood restaurant and drove back home.

Despite the bad start, it was a good day. Hopefully it’ll be a good year, but it’s going to be up to me to make it that way.