toast

this is not the way it's supposed to be going.

i realize that the new year is mere rhetoric. we take down old calendars and put up new calendars, make the adjustment to writing

a spirit of

renewal

another number down to symbolize the times, and then take part in our various vigils and feasts, marking some change that's supposed to occur at 12:00:00. when it's really just another day, another week, like the ones before it, just with a different label - a celebration of artificial new beginnings. that's why i'm just as likely to make a resolution or voice an intention in the fall or spring or on my birthday as i would in late december. but regardless of my pragmatic irreverence for the new year, i still eat blackeyed peas over rice with cornbread on the 1st day of the 1st month. this year, i even came up with a new year's resolution. and my meditation and personal journal entry on the first day of this year signifies a spirit of renewal within which it's obvious that my intent was to begin this year looking forward and moving forward with optimism, purpose, vigor and hope.

for goodness' sake, i had a wonderful weekend. my parents came to visit, i saw and actually hosted plenty of family members, and unlike

what

a life!

last year, i didn't even spend the midnight hour alone - a poet friend and i had a female bonding night over nachos, wine, and sparkling grape juice. i am so, so blessed. i walk through my place in a reflective mode and the coziness i've created here makes me smile. i look at the text messages in my mobile phone, at the many "happy new year" texts from friends and family, and i'm reassured that there is a place for me in the cosmos. i think of the options that lay ahead of my feet, and i realize how fortunate i am to have them. what a year! what a life!

that's why it's so frustrating for me to have to actively ignore the nagging temptation to give voice to my loneliness. in the face of all

wrong to acknowledge...

i crave more

this goodness, it seems so wrong to acknowledge that i crave more. it robs my beautiful new year of some of its shine. instead of freely reveling in the festive nature of this time, i find myself struggling to avoid reflecting on past relationships that i wish were surviving into this new year, or wondering if i will ever have someone to kiss at the stroke of midnight. my characteristic sentimentality annoys me at times like these.

who wants to think about how the new year is just another symbol of the passage of time that you wish wasn't passing with such merciless speed and determination? i realize that i am facing yet another birthday, and with it will come the augmentation of that number that people will be able to hold up as my unflinchingly brutal yardstick, giving folks a frame of reference within which to deliver their praise, or scrutiny, or words of consolation that make me understand some folks' kneejerk repulsion from any perceived pity or charity: that age, and single, but look what you've accomplished thus far... that age, and still not married? a smart, pretty girl like you?... that age, well, honey, you still have a ways to go yet, don't rush it... well at your age, men aren't ready for women like you, they're probably just intimidated... that age, and no children?... that age? really? well, wouldn't you like to have children?

who wants to think like this at the beginning of a new year? i mean, really. i am me, after all - champion of all things hopeful, lover of all things positive. but there is nothing positive about the physical

trying to suppress

my longing

craving that at times distracts me from deliberate concentration. there's nothing positive about the few extra moments that i sometimes take in bed after i wake up, struggling to stay asleep rather than face a day trying to suppress my longing for the someone who should be on the other side of the bed. there's nothing positive about the conflict i feel about baring my soul on this blog about it, knowing that although the exercise of writing it for an audience will increase me in some way, it may seriously affect the way that readers who know my identity will think of me after reading about the sensitive underbelly that i always hide in favor of sarcasm, humor, and the upbeat denial of my loneliness.

who wants every new year to remind them of the best new year's celebration that they ever had, which was with a significant

heartbreak is

still haunting

significant other who is no longer a part of their life? who wants the new year to be marked with reflection on how the last heartbreak is still haunting, despite the best efforts to be cool with the fact that it simply was what it was? who wants to start the new year acknowledging that fear of further disappointment may be the achilles heel for any new possibilities in the coming twelve months? who wants to start the new year wondering if all the engagements and weddings and expected children popping up amongst friends will rob them of the relationships that make being single bearable?

certainly not me. so, after publishing this post and highlighting a

behind the scenes...

of this happy face

vulnerability that is actually, surprisingly, not as challenging to write about as it is to expose, task number one is to look forward and move forward, having vented. and to slip back into the poetically exquisite self-denial that it takes to act as if there is nothing going on behind the scenes of this actress' happy face - as if there isn't an issue backstage that's constantly bucking for resolution, despite the best efforts of this actress to suppress it/drown it/choke it/deny it, embodying the lie that if you don't think about it, and if you turn your head in the other direction, it will just go away. *cue smokey and the miracles' tears of a clown...*

so happy new year! everything is (or will be) fine! the future looks bright! i have goals in hand and plans to make them happen - *raises glass full of sparkling grape juice* here's to happiness and goodness in the new year!

*sips*

*swallows*