New Beginnings (Again)

The years do seem to roll around rather fast these days, don't they? I remember when Christmas was a golden jewel, as inaccessible as China, and the joyful anticipation which began to build up from the end of November. School helped, of course, with Carol Services and Prizegivings and that great week after the exams were finished where we pretty much did what we wanted and got ready for the school to be opened up to parents on the last day... Then there was the trip away to the coast, to my grandparents (I grew up in Johannesburg, 12 hours drive away from where I was born in Port Elizabeth), the excitement of meeting up with cousins perhaps not seen for a year, the waking up on Christmas morning to presents and family and food food food. The holiday at Natures Valley afterwards, with sea and sun and sand and the New Year's party on the beach...

Now I'm an adult, the season seems to sneak up on me rather abruptly. I rush about getting presents, and before I know it, it's almost Twelfth Night, and time for the tree to come down. Jamie did have a concert at play school this year, which brought the season into focus. Of course, he refused to sing, but then he is only three. And we have had a marvellous Christmas break, with suprise visits from my sister and her husband (based in the UK) and a few wonderful days up the North Coast with family.

Soooo, this is not a complaining post, at all at all. I'm just thinking about the nature of new beginnings, and how we break our time into meaningful parts. Somehow, although I'm 36 years old, this time of year always feels as though it should be accompanied by the smell of new pencils and crisp paper. I crave textbooks and diaries, and new shoes. I want to hear stories of holidays away, of conquests made, resolutions undertaken and already broken. 2008 has ticked over into 2009, and twelve new months stretch ahead. And now that I no longer have a context around me which changes, now that I need to make the changes for myself, well, somewhere, I need to tap a well of willpower and corral the muse and make the changes.

It's shaping up to be a momentous year all round. 2008 was one of those years where you watch in bemusement as edifices crumble and fall and, in the rubble, new bricks and blocks arise, heralding new orders, new shapes to the ordered universe, new paradigms shifting into view. 2009 may just be the year where many of those blocks settle into place, and there we are - somewhere new. I'm afraid of change (isn't everybody? Really?) but I see this happening on both a personal level and, spreading outwards, within South Africa and the wider world. When 2009 rolls over into 2010, the view from where we stand may be quite different, and I'd like to be ready for the change.

Because if one thing is certain, it is that the years go by faster and faster, and that if you don't grab them by the scruff and live them, you won't get them back. So, Happy 2009, and here's to positive change and open minds and all those good things. It's going to be a rollercoaster.