Time of Your Life

"Another turning point a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go
So make the best of this test and don't ask why
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time
It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life"
-Green Day "Time of Your Life"

Ringing in the New Year has always been a metaphor for leaving old things behind and starting anew with a clean slate. Every New Year comes in chock full of resolutions, diets, promises, all things that we try to put in place to make a fresh start. But can you ever really start over? I mean how many of those resolutions are forgotten by the end of January? And how many of us that started out with a diet plan on January 1 actually notice that by March we've gained a few? Starting fresh always sounds good but it has to be more than just words. Starting fresh is also incomplete without understanding, coming to grips with, and learning from those old things that we are trying to either purge or overcome. Life has been crazy this 2008. And for the latter part of this crazy year I have focused alot on those things I need to purge. I have been so caught up in all the bad, horrible, unthinkable pain I've experienced that I haven't much looked at the "why" and "how" and most importantly "what now" of it all. What I'm saying is I don't want to get so caught up in making sure that the bad doesn't happen again that I forget to realize that not only bad things have happened. Also I want to live in the victory of overcoming and the gratitude that had it not been for those things those failed relationships, moments of low self-esteem, periods of doubt and depression, and my insaliable thirst for something new and different and better, I might never have even had the strength, desire or courage to start anew.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. Not in the sense that we have a predetermined map of life laid out before us, or that a deity is ordering us to go about life in a certain manner but I believe that everything we do, everything that we are yields us to something else. For instance those of us that value love will find ourselves in situations where we are growing in love and constantly defining and redefining what we believe love to be and do. These moments in our life that teach us lessons and mold us continually into the newer versions of ourselves are not happenstance. We do not have relationships not to learn from them, nor do we experience joy or pain not to build something from it. I've said it before we all have the same 24 hours in our day. So funny that the time is spent so differently depending on the who. I want to strive to be a person that makes the most of the 24 I have each day. I also want to be thankful for each moment of that time I spend whether it be good or bad. It's living. It's growing. For me; I also want it to be loving. Loving my accomplishments, loving my failures, loving my... self. For all that I am and hope to be, for the strengths that I am sharpening and all of the weaknesses that remind me of my humanity. See I don't want to be a person that only has comfort in my abilities and can only be consoled by what I see are the "good" things about me. It's all me. Time and Love are teaching me to be patient and secure in me. So this New Year's of course there are some things that I want to do in 2009 that maybe I didn't get to do in 08. But for the first time I'm not looking for a clean slate. A clear mind will be enough for me. 2009 is gonna be the time of my life.

Until the next song plays...
- Jazz