Here we are again. A blank calendar. A twinge of hope.
We count the previous hardships.
“Things will be better this year,”
We say,
“They have to be.”
One year folds into the next, creases in a paper that blows away at the slightest wind.
For a moment, we stand still and see the rate which time passes and it’s terrifying.
We run after it, frantic like a late commuter trying to catch the last bus.
But we are too late.
New Years is hard to ignore.
The inevitability of one thing ending and another beginning is something you can’t escape.
Even if you chose not to celebrate, there is the date, glaring at us with its rounded numbers, and you think what every human has probably thought since they started keeping track of dates,
“I can’t believe it’s….
20
16.
WHAT?!”
I am 14 and I am in my friend’s basement, and in all our hormones and emotions we are most excited because we are about to witness the end of the world.
It’s Y2k and all the computers that are running the world are about to crash.
Only they don’t. Nothing happens.
I am disappointed.
That was yesterday.
I blink my eyes and I am 30 married with a child and terrified that this is all so damn fast.
And I know, that’s the human condition,
To feel like you’re running out of time,
To be ticking time bombs.
To fear the inevitable end.
But…
We were made to live forever.
Sometimes I don’t want to face New Years because I just have a hard time being positive.
I want to hope so badly things this year will be better,
But I feel like I am tired of disappointment, and it’s so much easier to have low expectations.
To dare to hope would be another risk.
And I am weary from putting my heart out there,
But it’s even more tiring trying to keep it in.
Yet there is a sacredness in holding some things close to me,
Only expressing it to those that truly know my heart.
So I am not going to write down goals.
I am not gonna write down my hopes and dreams for 2016.
They are deeply inscribed in my heart,
And they are not going anywhere,
Despite my fear of them being put on hold.
I’ll embrace new beginnings because that’s what I’ve been given.
But I’ll also know that every day is just as new, whether it be the first or the last of the year, or some boring day right in the middle.
Maybe we’ve got it wrong in obsessing over dates.
Maybe we just need to take every day as it is given to us
A new one.
New mercy.
New grace.
New bread.
And know we will live forever.
Some people say faith is a childish game
Play on, children, like it’s Christmas day
Sing me a song, sing me a melody
Sing out loud, you’re a symphony
(Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors- Live Forever)
brookelouvier.com 
Beautiful – thank you