2014 - The Year of Love and Quiet Joy

I have been in a haze.  A little unhappy.  A little unfocussed.  But mostly I would describe it as absent or removed or maybe lost.

I assume this happens to everyone--some period in your life when woe or doubt or exhaustion accumulates unnoticed until you're perpetually carrying around a grey dirty window that separates you from the electricity of the world.  Nothing seems as bright or as lovely or as engaging as it had before.  Maybe you realize that you're bored and that you can't figure out what would you like to do with your free time--you who have so many interests, so much curiosity, so many things you usually want to learn or do or see or experience.

I wish Americans felt more comfortable using the word "ennui," because it's the perfect single word to say what I mean.  And ennui can be difficult to shake (especially in the winter, in a polar vortex, with a windchill outside of -45 that wants to eat you the moment you leave your home).

But 2014 is the year for breaking the grip of my sadness and complacency.  I'm getting back on track and shaking off my distance from the world.  So, as a first step, I am going to take stock of my life right here in public to make a declaration of the things I have to be thankful for:

1. I have a beautiful life in a cozy house with a cute grumpy dog and the perfect man for me.
2. I was born into an amazing loving family--not everyone has this.  This is amazing luck.
3. I have married into another amazing loving family--seriously.  I have two great moms and dads now, and I tripled the number of cool brothers I can pal around with.  Again, how did I have this luck?
4. And I have a small wonderful network of chosen family who I have had the good fortune to meet, collect and hold dear no matter how close or how far they are from me. 
5. I was raised to be polite and empathetic and engaged and curious and to love learning, and those have been the most important skills that have made everything else in my life possible.

And that's the list.  That covers everything.  Every other thing that I might be grateful for is just a subset of that list of 5 things.  It's that simple.  And so I'm going back to that list this year (and I hope every day for the rest of my life) to refocus my life on those things and those people, and I am quite certain that joy will follow.

I invite you to make your own list.  It's amazing how easy it is and how cheering it is to write it down.  

Happy New Year, friends.  May your 2014 be filled with love and quiet joy.