Looking back at my posts this time last year, I wonder if there’s a reason I didn’t post a New Years Eve post. Usually I spend a whole heap of time reflecting on the meaning of life, the direction I’m taking and my relationships yet this time last year I was in a very un-sentimental frame of mind. Perhaps this was due to watching too much BSG and Sarah Connor Chronicles, or it might have been a sense of fatalism about life in general. In 2008, I dropped out of a whole heap of stuff I’d been doing in order to just earn an income and have time to look after kids. In truth I felt like the particular tack I’d been taking was the wrong one so it was a relief to drop it yet I was then faced with the question of what I was going to do instead.
Sometime during this year, I started to look at things differently and developed a little bit of a framework on how I was going to move forward. My thinking was that instead of trying to change things and wasting a whole lot of energy on moving immovable objects, I should look for opportunities as they came and take advantage of them. Instead of spending all my energy focussed on the things I didn’t have, I should look at all the things I did have and see what I could do with them. In some ways it’s about taking the path of least resistance but I like to think of it as guiding my (awesome looking) space ship through the asteroid field by heading for the gaps instead of trying to push all the rocks out of the way.
Anyway, maybe this philosophy is how we ended up here in Sale. Steph had the opportunity to work pretty much anywhere in Australia, we knew we would come out in front if we sold the house and we figured that we didn’t have a lot to lose as we weren’t exactly living The Life in Forest Lake. Now we are in Sale, we’ve reconfigured the game and we’ll see what presents itself in 2010.
So how about you lot out there? Any thoughts on where 2010 might be taking you? I’m off to buy the beer and wine for a small gathering that seems to have eventuated at our place so I’ll bid you a happy new year, be safe and I’ll see you on the other side.
UPDATE: I did write a new years post last year, don’t know how I missed it the first time I looked for it. It’s a bit more up-beat than I remember feeling at the time. I stand by those comments on parenthood. It can be a drag but it’s worth it.
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life, new years eve
We’ve had a reflective couple of days at our place as we usually do: reviewing the year, lamenting this and that, resolving to do everything better next year and even resolving not to resolve to do the same things we resolved and didn’t do last time. We’ve joked about SMART new years resolutions and come up with one or two things. Frankly I find the process depressing more than life enriching which is probably why so many people tell me that they refuse to make new years resolutions at all.
Having said that, we had a quietly pleasant new years. Usually we have a bit of a stress out at new years because we have had this strange belief that what you’re doing at new years eve is somehow symbolic of the state of your whole life so if you’re not spending that time surrounded by close friends and partying on then you must be the biggest losers in the whole universe.
For the first time ever, we didn’t go to any new years eve parties (Steph was sick with some kind of virus that’s been trying to kill us and the kids have been sleep deprived since Christmas anyway) so we put the kids to bed, had pizza for tea, a sip of cheap bubbly brut, had some chocolate, lit a candle, blew it out and went to bed. (I might have watched the Doctor Who Christmas special too before closing my eyes).
Today we caught up with a few friends whilst trying to avoid the smeltering heat and spent an hour down at the lake feeding the ducks and turtles (and a giant eel) while the sun set.
Our experience of having kids has been dominated by feelings of social isolation so I suppose our new years eve reflected that but I also feel lucky to be doing the dad thing. Many people feel pressure to have an amazing new years eve celebration every year but I now think that each of us needs to realise that whether we are completely happy or not with whatever’s going on in our lives, we need to keep in mind that life is a journey and that in order to go on any journey, we have to strike out from home and perhaps enter some unfamiliar places. While this time of life being a parent of very young children can be a grind in some ways, it is also a life enriching experience that I know I will treasure forever so I don’t really regret missing the big boozy countdown this year.
Happy new years to all and best wishes for 2009.
[tags]fatherhood, new years eve[/tags]
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fatherhood, new years eve
