Sad New Years

                                                                                                                              Photo by Jodi 


                        " I walked a mile with Pleasure and 
                        She chatted all the way.

                        But she left me none the wiser 
                        for all she had to say.

                        I walked a mile with Sorrow. 
                        And ne'er a word said she.

                       But, oh! The things I learned from her, 
                       when sorrow walked with me."
                                    - Robert Browning Hamilton
                                            

I haven’t showered all year. I haven’t paid bills all year and I haven’t felt good all year.  Of course it is only 15 or so hours into the new year, but please allow me this one slight attempt at humor.  Every new year upon waking, for about 35 years now, I always tell my mom, dad and sister all the things I have not done all year.  I’m sure it was clever when I was seven, now it is simply tradition.  One small tradition in a long line of traditions that have left me squarely in the past.

In his book The Geography of Time, Robert Levine speaks of people who live primarily in past time and wax nostalgic.  You know the type, the ones who make family scrap books and hold all the old family stories.  Without realizing it, I have become one of those folks.  I cherish my past connections and memories.  I work hard at keeping them alive, as much as something that is over can be kept alive.  Whether it is the town I grew up in, old friends, childhood books, or the ghosts of 30 year old summer memories. I take them out and pump life back into them through i-photo slide shows and sharing stories with my family and friends of by-gone days. 

I suppose it is a natural thing to do.  As we age, we want to keep the past alive.  Lately though I have been stuck there.  Stuck in the memories of the beaches of my youth, my first clam chowder, old songs and stories, and the like.  And I find that the more I live in the past, the less present I am to the present.  I find that I must let the past go. 

I don’t know how the past came to dominate my life.  It didn’t happen all at once.  But in this the year, this day, this moment I know what I must do.

Many spend the new year making resolutions or being grateful for what they have.  I am not there. I am spending the new year mourning.  Mourning how the past has gripped the life out of my present.  I’m not being out in the world, but accompanying my sadness.  Letting go.  Going through clothes and books and trinkets.  Bagging them up and moving them out.

And in being with my sadness, I have heard more than I have in a long time.  I have experienced a sad new year and it feels right.  For I can not know about my present until I make some space for it.