Bring on the New Year

This year our Christmas tree dried out very quickly. By a few days after Christmas it was so brittle I decided to commence with the undecorating process. Like usual I approached the task with a mix of dread and anticipation. I hate the tedious taking off of ornaments and then picking up 3.2 million prickly pine needles. All that before even beginning to drag the not-so-evergreen out the door, spewing aged water and 4 million more needles during the exodus.

But, anyway, it has to be done, so I do it. The good part, the part that I anticipate, if not with true eagerness at least with a little bit of relief, is how big and clear my living room looks once the tree’s out. It feels absolutely expansive and suddenly cleaner and lighter. It was especially so this year. I’m telling you, I felt like doing a cartwheel. And if not for the risk of breaking a hip, I would have.

Instead I stood there feeling all positive about the dead tree out of the room and the open space and light where it had been. In that moment I realized I could stand to do a little mental undecorating of my attitudes and angst. I decided to drag out some of the dusty, brittle, and outdated worries and disappointments packed away in my mind’s attic, and toss them right out there in the side yard alongside my now horizontal Christmas tree. And from that moment forward I’ve been a new woman, humming and skipping through blissful days.

Well, okay, that’s not exactly how it went, but I have been making efforts to do more “out with the old” to make room for some new and it has been good. A new year is the right time to realize that you can’t grab an opportunity if you’re using both hands to hold onto the past. All that undecorating broadened my living room and my horizons simply by clearing out what was finished to make room for what’s becoming. The space is there and so are the possibilities. I think it’s going to be a really happy new year.