In a few days the ball will drop on this present year, igniting flashing lights and celebratory songs to welcome in the new year. Some people will be relieved that 2022 is over. For them the challenges have been frequent, the struggles heavy and difficult. Perhaps they are in the acute phase of grief since a loved one left the earth this year, or in some shock over a diagnosis of a death-defying health challenge, or a beloved job has been downsized or disappeared.
In contrast, for some, memories of the past year will sustain them through the years to come. A new grandbaby came in, they married the love of their life, or the long dreamed of vacation turned out to be all they wished for and more.
Still others greet the new year with the excitement that comes from a fresh start. The fitness level they’d hoped to achieve now seems doable, their long-awaited retirement begins, or the new job or promotion takes effect.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been all these people throughout the various New Year’s Eves I’ve lived through. My first important job as a professional dancer required me to be in Los Angeles for rehearsals during the holiday season for a show that was opening New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. Knowing no one in the area, and despite my excitement and love of dancing, I’d never felt so lonely before or since until–my mother contacted a woman she vaguely knew through her Newcomer’s Club in Louisville Ky, and asked her to reach out to me, as this was my first holiday season away from home. The woman’s husband drove 60 miles round trip to pick me up at the rehearsal studio so I could have Christmas dinner with their family. My gratitude became enormous when I realized his sacrificial hospitality, (perhaps done as a favor to his wife), meant a 60-mile round trip to return me to LA the following day and then return himself back home.
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough,” according to Aesop, the author of the famous fables. Gratitude may be the secret to what we try to eventually do in the Art of Grieving –to appreciating whatever is, has been, and will be. As 2023 is the year that my upcoming book, The Art of Grieving will be coming out I am full of gratitude for those of you who have helped me get it this far. And, in advance, I’m grateful to the small village of people who will help to get it to the place where many readers may hold it in their hands.
If you’d like to be part of this small village of folks who’ll offer their comments and suggestions as the book process takes shape, click here, and see how it works. artofgrieving.us
Meanwhile, my wishes for you, and for myself, as the arts help us live our best lives now, are:
–that we may greet each day of the new year as Maya Angelou suggests, “This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.”
–that we remember what artist Henri Matisse suggests, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
–Here’s a link to Karen Drucker’s song, quite popular with the caregivers in our selfcare online class, Thank You for this Day – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9vRwf2254
Happy New Year! Farewell to 2022 and Welcome 2023!
Sheila
