Of Bears and Penguins

I heard an interview with a writer. When asked to talk about pivotal moments in his life, he said he didn’t really look back at his past because he was too busy looking forward. But ignored or not, the past trails my heels like a shadow. I can’t shake it, and really I don’t want to put it down. The stories and dust ridden memories remind me of who I am.
Tomorrow, the only thing that will be different in my life is the number on the calendar. But a year from now I will be different, a thousand different moments and memories will have shaped me up a little more into the person I am becoming.
In the past year I’ve stood next to a new grave, I’ve danced with a friend at her wedding. I’ve graduated from college and eschewed, at least for two years, my chosen profession of journalism in favor of teaching in a school where kids are struggling to learn. What should I say - That I laughed and cried this past year, that sometimes I did both? That’s life. Everyone on the face of the planet did those things in 2005.
So now we turn our faces to a new year that will come in the night. Maybe we stay up to watch the year turn because we are afraid the New Year will sweep away our memories and give us a clean slate if we aren’t awake to hold on to our remembers. Without our scribbles from all the years prior, how will we know where we are and where we have been?
I turn my face to the coming year and I can promise one thing in complete confidence. I will laugh and cry, sometimes I might do both. I can promise another thing too: at the end of 2006 I’ll turn another page in this story and what is to be written on that page won’t make sense without the ones that came before.
Happy New Year. It’s a prayer, really. A wish, a hope offered up, laid on someone’s shoulders in love and protection. It is a hope that one will find comrades to stand with in laughter and in not-laughter.
It’s the end of another year and I’m off to see the world, but not alone. For at my shoulder stand the people who carry my past, my stories, and so carry my future as well. Happy New Year to you all.