I’mgonnarecycle a few things this new year.
I’ll reuse my car, now withover210,000milesonit. My clothes and shoes still fit, so there’s little need to add to the wardrobe as I have no grand openings, awards shows, or premieres to attend.
Same friends. Same job responsibilities.
Some of my columns, while expressed in new ways, will cover old topics.
Still, I would be a silly old fool if this were my only outlook about opening the first page of a new calendar.
Two very important emotions come to mind which need refreshing not just every year but each day. The new year, however, provides an optimum time to consider how love and hope will factor into my 2024.
While we do recycle love in the form of sustained relationships, it is still a good thing to acknowledge the importance each year of being reclothed in love. Like that favorite cotton T-shirt, love grows more comfortable the more we wear it. Love shapes and reshapes us when we keep it fresh and clean. I am particularly excited about a new love coming my way in 2024, a grandson destined to dethrone even Jack Black as far as most-favored male figures go.
I will also reclothe myself in hope. The past few years have seen the wick almost burn out, with a pandemic and the political division it caused. Another election year could dim the candle of hope further as artificial intelligence combined with human insistence that lies and lack of accountability are norms. I want to hope that good sense will once again burn brightly.
Finally, a new year represents yet another chance to get things right. In therapy, the word “deconstructing” refers to tearing down and building healthier habits and mindsets. The second half of my life has been an ongoing and at times futile attempt to accomplish this. Some days feel as if I am struggling to untangle a knotted necklace chain. Each year, a little more progress is made.
Empowered. That is who I want to be in 2024. For myself, for my daughters, for my granddaughters. And for that little boy blue who’ll be spending hours in the arms of his 68-year-old grandmother.
The turning of a calendar page is an action of hope and of love and empowerment. Once again, thanks to a divine being, I am here for all of it.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
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