What the new year brings
In one cozy moment, quiet had settled over the house.
Christmas had come and gone. There was nothing to do but throw another log on the fire and relax.
Each child had retreated to their bunkers with their Santa loot and were happily engaged introducing the new to the old, and rearranging pecking orders.
Time enough to breathe and loosen my white-knuckled grip on this manufactured re- ality.
A carpet of canines had just settled in for a short winter’s nap while the cats that had lain doggo were finally stirring.
The Bumpass Christmas, as this year’s carnival of excess, would become known, at its most festive featured ten humans, six dogs, one ginormous roast and at least three subsequent meals made entirely from leftovers. And despite some minor disagreements, some involving sharp words others involving sharp teeth, somehow we had survived mostly unscathed.
Of course, it wasn’t all happiness and fancy Christmas lights shot out of a cannon in the direction of the house, although the lazy light show did its part to lessen our grief the night “Luna,” still lustrous of fur though elderly in hamster years, finally trundled off to the giant cardboard tube in the sky.
Her departure serves as a tiny reminder of the humans we were missing this year, too
ll those shiny packages containing even the smallest of treasures helped to redirect our thoughts. Not that we will ever admit such selfish soothing.
What is Next if not a distraction from Last? Life is good. Good. Not perfect, but that’s what keeps it interesting. Tomorrow we will try to build us better selves.
We will strive to be more organized. We will seek to exhibit fewer vices.
We will be our thinner, healthier, happier selves, though we will still be recognizable. It’s just that our finances will be in better order and our hearts will be at peace.
But the process in our house is also external, born of the unhappiness of others in us.
We squint our eyes and see where our lives would be bet-
ter with less of someone else’s life spilling over.
My husband wants less clutter and more peace and quiet.
My daughter wants to eliminate all the dog hair that seeks to cling to her formal-hued fashions.
My son would like his time on the internet uninterrupted.
I would like everyone just to get along.
We won’t all get what we want. And that’s as it should be. Even my most pessimistic self should know the process of resolve is incremental. Small starts are starts all the same.
And not all failures are regressive. Most of our missteps still send us forward, just in a different direction.
It will still be noisy and chaotic. But there will be joy.
Dogs will still leave a trace, but you will learn to use a lint brush.
Sometimes the internet goes out “unexpectedly,” and the world doesn’t end.
Even when we argue, we’re still talking it out.
Getting along sounds loud and angry sometimes, too.
So it is with some hope that I step off into a new year and another beginning. Next year may not be better, but it will always bring something . for which we can be thankful. A
Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.