New Year, Old Clothes

As I drove to work this morning and was thinking about what I'd face when I got there (the start of the new academic quarter, new students, coworkers I haven't seen in two weeks because either I or they were on vacation, etc) and how I was wearing (again) one of my go-to outfits for work: grey plaid pants (very subtle plaid - definitely a neutral per Clinton and Stacy's rules), blue buttondown shirt (which is a little snug with the holiday weight I've gained) and grey flowy sweater (which is decidedly less flowy than it was in the fall, also due to holiday weight gain) - I thought, "Well, nothing's changed except the year."

And that's kind of where I am. I like to be a big proponent of perpetual self renewal and exploration and improvement, even when it's wrapped in the New Year days, but this year I just haven't been able to muster up the get-up-and-go for it. There is too much of the struggle of 2011 that isn't subsiding simply because there's a new calendar on the wall and that is making it hard for me to feel any of the drive and hope that resolutions and ideas and wishes need to have behind them.

I usually love winter. I love the chill and bundling up and snow. But ever since last winter's disastrous utility bills, I've been fearing this winter because if we have bills like that again, we're sunk. Every week, instead of wondering excitedly when I'll be able to introduce Nate to playing in the snow (which I'm guessing he probably won't actually like), I fear a snowy forecast because it means a higher heating bill.

Everything - simply everything - in my life right now is tied down with concerns about money. It's hard to find renewal and inspiration when you are basically homebound due to financial constraints. As I think that out loud to myself, though, I immediately think of people who are homebound due to physical or mental disability and how I would fully believe this does not force them to live a "lesser than" life - so why should it for me?

There are things I can do, things I plan to do. For example, I need to finish my incomplete course from last spring. It's a required course, so if I don't finish it by May, I'll have to retake it. That would be seriously stupid on my part. So I just need to buckle down and do it and stop griping internally that I don't have a workspace, that I can't concentrate at home. I just have to. Period.

Maybe completing some big as well as some small things I need to get done will help me feel better. Not having stuff hanging over me always helps. We still won't be any closer to paying the rent without difficulty, but any lessening of concerns should be helpful. (I think. Can't hurt to try.)

2011 had some truly stellar moments, but it also had a million small (and some big) difficult moments. For 2012, all I wish is that the ratio flips. Life will have difficult moments; it's how we grow. But I really could do with the universe's stellar moments tipping in my favor a bit more this year. I'm not looking for favors or handouts. I will work hard as hell to deserve more; I just feel like 2011 was a lot of work without the rewards and opportunities.

I have a cautious feeling in my gut that great things are coming. I said as much to a friend a few weeks ago and really, truly meant it. I fear that 2012 will be 2011 all over again, but it can't be. It already was; it cannot be again. What comes can only be new and what is new is still yet to be determined, so I have to reason I can still affect change.

So onward we trudge. Upwards, 2012, here we go.