“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said to myself the other day when, while channel surfing, a little bit of alarming network news poured across the screen. “This can’t be happening again!” I added. It was kind of like deja vu, or War of the Worlds part two: I’d tuned in too late to tell that this news wasn’t breaking for what would have been a shocking second time this year. In truth, the nation wasn’t re-living some already unforgettable crisis. I’d stumbled upon the news channel’s now cliched “Year in Review” segment.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: news channels and newspapers aren’t the only ones who’ve been known to collect their thoughts on prevous years right before the ball drops. For a few in a row, I’d do my recollecting; then, I’d drag myself away from Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve as soon as the Times Square crowd starting singing Auld Lang Syne. That’s when I would wish my journal a happy new year with my very own “Year in Review” entry. So upon seeing the first and only ”Year in Review” I watched last week, my mind began to rifle through its dusty collection of memories from 2006, many of which were easy to recall (and others, rather repressed). But it didn’t take long before I stopped myself.
When it stands alone, a year is really long time. A lot happens. Some relationships end, and others begin. We make some memories we wish we could forget, and others we wish we could re-live. There are losses and wins, failures and successes, tears and laughter, growing pains and growth spurts. Lessons.
Year in Review segments are all about specifics. You see the who, the what, the where, the when and when you backtrack to tougher times, you ask yourself how on earth you made it from there to here. But you made it.
There is no need for me to review the specifics from my 2006, or to hold my own War of the Worlds part 2 deja vu, or to re-live whatever random clips of crises that made my year what it was. I lost and I won, I failed and I succeeded, I cried and I laughed. I grew, and I learned.
I learned a lot more than I could type right now. In part, I learned the importance of the arts of being patient, letting go and living in the “now.” I learned that there is no grandiose moment during which a life turns from bad to good with a stagnant promise to stay where you’d like it. I learned that even if you find something or someone you’re passionate about, you will still have bad days. I learned to appreciate the little things, and I learned that if I were to spend this life waiting around for one big thing to appreciate, I would forget to appreciate the little things; I’d never realize that maybe the one big thing is life itself, and that life is made up of that bunch of little things.
So the specifics of my 2006 will remain un-reviewed. Now, I enter 2007 appreciating every friendship made, every good time had, every growing pain and every lesson learned last year. And should auld aquaintance be forgot, I think I’ll be just fine. I’ll always remember that I made it.
