Beginnings

I woke up in the morning, on the first day of the new year, having learned something about new beginnings.  Or perhaps been reminded.

It’s a good idea to have a plan. 

We had heard that there was going to be live music at our local and only small hotel for new year, and so we had meandered down mid evening to enjoy the company of other locals and see in this new year as warmly and as gently as we had enjoyed Christmas here in The Sounds.

To our joint consternation, the music had transpired to be karaoke.

Now, with the right people and the right atmosphere, I think karaoke can be fun.  But it’s perhaps not something to take people by surprise with, especially the introverts who call one of the most remote parts of New Zealand home.

By half past ten we were back home.  And not long after, we were in bed. 

I regretted this.  I regretted that I didn’t have the courage to sing, the courage to stand out, to perhaps light the way.  I regretted that I didn’t find the words to keep my husband up to see the new year in at home.  I regretted that I didn’t even think to see the new year on my own, welcoming the new year’s nearly-new moon from the peace of my deck overlooking the silver sea.  I still do.

 Instead, I watched others reach new year after me, and wished that I could turn back time and try again. 

New beginnings are important.  They can be what my husband calls a funny time, they can be hard, they can be breathtakingly beautiful, they can be skin-tingling and  frightening or exhilarating, they can be quiet or perhaps lonely.  Whatever they are, they can still be breathed in, acknowledged, embraced, seen, unmissed.  I could have done this, even by myself.  A solitary new beginning is still a point in time and still belongs to me.

Next year, I will plan for the new beginning.  I will be there. 

And the story, whatever it is, will be told.  For our stories tell what we don’t want to forget.

I will remind my sister not to book new year at the most haunted pub in Britain!

And, in the meantime, I have had the whole of the first month of the year to begin to step into my dreams for this year, for although I may have missed the year’s turning, I have not missed much and I will not miss out..

Banksy goals for 2025