New Year’s Day and Forgiveness
New Year’s Day. Brand new year. In the general scheme of things, in reality that is, time marked by a calendar is one of the most artificial constructs yet created by man. Beth’s mare is blissfully unaware that it is January 1st; she knows only that she is 6 months away from her first foal.
Indeed, men and woman across the globe have not even settled on a single calendar, let alone a single New Year’s Day.
Yet this concept, the start of something new, is like many of our uniquely human constructs in that it allows us to consider a course of action that may actually be unique to us. On this first day of the new calendar year we can choose to take, or give, a Mulligan. A re-do or a re-boot. We can choose to purposely and purposefully walk away from a memory that should be better than it was. We can seek to un-do the effects of an ill-advised word or action by apologizing and asking for forgiveness.
More importantly we can reach out, make the first move, and offer forgiveness.
Memories are funny things, aren’t they? As I wrote last week or the week before, left to our own devices what we remember is mostly how we felt at any given time or place or happening. Beth took a really cool pic at lunch the other day with some of our kids utilizing her mad selfie skills (she’s not quite as on board with the “just remember, don’t click” thing as I am). Lunch made me giggle, made me proud, made me a little bit sad. What will I remember, with or without the epic panoramic selfie, next year or 5 or 10 or 20 years from now?
There’s a woman my age with whom I went to high school who is still very angry about how she remembers being treated as a young woman. I was in school with this group of classmates for only 3 years so my memories of my high school mates are more shallow than the kids I grew up with. Pretty OK high school memories to be truthful, but my young life was admittedly a smooth sail for the most part. I’ve oft said that I was a bit too pleased with myself as a youngster and a young man, but I’d like to think that a life’s course that has forged a very real sense of humility has sanded away some of the edges and armor that prevented me from seeing any part I may have played in her unhappiness. We only remember our own emotions, but time with all of our emotions tends to open us up to the realization that others may remember stuff, and us, differently.
And so we come to a New Year’s Day, an artificial starting line created by a creature set apart by our ability to choose. Why not take advantage of this day, however artificial it might be, and choose to let go of as much unhappiness as you can? Choose to forgive those who may have contributed to that unhappiness, especially if they have grown to be someone for whom the very thought of causing pain in another brings on a deep, abiding sorrow. Start anew. Fresh. Why not?
Remember, as arbitrary and contrived as it may be, January 1st always starts with “Happy” and New”.
I’ll see you next year…
Tags: high school, Lincoln, Reunion, Southbridge
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2015 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Crossfit, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.