Friday 1 January 2016

First day



2016 is here and its first day was just another day. That made me happy. Happy beyond words. Happy in its most gratifying simplicity. Don't you find it overwhelming when you charge yourself with a lot of expectations from yourself and from the others? Where to go for the New Year's Eve, what food to prepare, what friends to see, will you be a guest or the host, what should you wear, will you have fun, should you just lock yourself in, wearing your pjs, and watch TV under a blanket, pretending you're not at home? All these questions we start burdening our mind with when December comes (if not earlier) simply make our festive season stressful and  tiring and we all come out of it rather drained of energy and depressed.

 On the train to Bristol a few days ago, I overheard a lady talking on the phone (I couldn't help it, it was the train to Glasgow and the only 3 carriages available that day were bursting with luggage and travelers, all regretting surely they took the unfortunate decision to spend their holiday away from home), saying "Now that Christmas is out of the way..." and I thought "Well, British people must really love Christmas!" , but then I remembered I didn't quite have tonnes of enthusiasm for the holidays myself this year. Today I found myself thinking  "Now that the holidays are out of the way we can finally carry on with our lives." I loved that feeling I had today - maybe for the first time in my life - that the first day of the year was a normal day, no pressure, no exhaustion, no headaches, no big thing after a much expected big thing that wasn't quite as big a thing as I had imagined... Today was a lovely, simple, normal day like any other and I hope I learned not to put any more useless pressure on me next year and the years to come. I hope I'll choose to have special days during the year, out of the blue, when I'll feel the need of a bit of sparkle and I'll decide to have new beginnings on a sunny Tuesday for example, whatever month that will be. I'll put a lovely dress on and allow myself to feel special on a Sunday morning, take a few photographs and make it a moment to remember. I'm ready to start work (No, I'm not! I am desperate for another week or at least one day...) and I am ready to continue what I had before today. I don't want to remember last days of old years or first days of new years, I simply want to remember special days. My special days. I'll let sparkles into my life. Monday mornings if I feel like it. Ok, I'm not ready to feel the sparkles this Monday, I'll be realistic...
2016, bring it on! Or I should rather say "Tomorrow, bring it on!"