2016: Auld Lang Syne

Here I am at the start of a new year. I'm a teacher, though, and my year starts in August and ends in May and there's this pause for 2 and a half months of in between time. Resolutions are not usually what I do. My school year theme is "fishing." Cast my nets into deep water. The pope has called for a jubilee year of mercy, and the church year begins in Advent. I've already started on that year: I've decided to be merciful to myself and through that, to others. And in the process, boldly cast nets and see what happens.
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Cast my nets into deep water...a friend was talking to me about boundaries, which I know I'm dicey on (ENFJ). She said what I needed was a net. A net, like fishermen, she said, in the water. Keeps the connection flowing but not all the crap.

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Deep water. The Mississippi has crested in St. Louis. The Meramec was higher than it's ever been. Many people are flooded out, or trapped on an island of high ground. My inlaws wait for the crest where they live. Bixby and Brooklyn sandbagged at the River Des Peres. The river of the fathers. I obsessively check water levels and view photos sent in to newspaper or TV stations and posted online. River levels are important to me. I went to lunch yesterday with my mother and sisters and Colleen said, "I knew you would know the details. I don't have to look anything up."

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London asked me: What if it flooded enough that we had to leave?

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Do not be afraid.  I'm not as afraid of leaving now. In any sort of way. Sometimes leaving is the mercy. And sometimes walking back in the front door is the mercy.

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Auld Lang Syne is sung on New Year's Eve. It is also played when the British flag is lowered for the last time when a colony gains independence. Goodbye.

They have a ceremony for that.

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I'm making a list of all the entities that I declared "Dead to Me" over the past 20 years. Thinking about which ones I will let go. Not everything has to be let go at once. It's too hard to try it that way. I'm also making a list of all the things I've put off. And the course of a lifetime runs over and over again. I've put a lot of things on the back burner. My brain is ready to whittle that list down. To get things done.

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I have some figuring out of where I'm headed next and what my plans are and what will come to fruition. I need to really look and really see. I saw the movie "Spotlight" this afternoon and at the moment when the characters decide it's time to publish the story, there's a blame game there in that editor's office. And he sums it up: "sometimes you're stumbling around in the dark until someone turns on the light." I thought about my classroom. I thought about putting pieces together. I thought about my life, about connections and looking and seeing and knowing.

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So here's to 2016. Once upon a time, auld lang syne, a blog reader told me not to be so very hard on myself. Be soft. It has taken me 8 years to try to listen. But I'm resolving to try.