Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Yay, 2007 is here! Well I think it's 'yay'... I can't quite figure out what happened to 2006, but the new year has roled in regardless.

There's something rather refreshing about new year - there's the excitement of the clock ticking over; the reprieve of a whole year with no mistakes in it yet; a chance for a fresh start; expectations for all that is to come. That instant in which the date changes isn't so different from any other night when the date changes - just time doing its thing and marching on as it does - and yet everything is different all at once. I never can get my head around the almost artificial demarcation from the previous year, but I do love the fireworks and the emotion of the moment.

That being said, I felt anything but refreshed today. In fact I felt down right seedy!

It's several years since I stayed up until midnight, but friends spontaneously invited us over and we had a delightful evening introducing them to Carcassonne and enjoying being together. We arrived home just in time to watch the city fireworks through our back windows before tumbling into bed. And today I've had a headache from dawn until dusk. Don't tell me my old body isn't up to midnight stands anymore?!!!

New Year always provokes deep reflection in me. It's not that I don't reflect any other time - I invest far too much energy in naval gazing - but at new year I start reflecting on a grand scale. Not 'what kind of a person have I been today?' but 'taking stock of all that my life is'. This year is producing some interesting reflections.

I live in Tasmania, but am I Tasmanian? One of my friends recently realised she was Tasmanian when she went to Melbourne - she kept stopping in the street and staring up at the skyscrapers!

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would live in Tasmania. Not that it isn't a wonderful place to live - it's beautiful, there aren't many people (483,000 to be precise), and there's a layed back feeling that pervades life here. But at the same time it's an island that sometimes feels too small.

2007 and life has brought me to this place. I'm trying to get my head around it - my soul catching up with my body, so to speak. This morning I read something in 'The Message' that is helping me to process.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be too impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. (Galatians 6:4,5)

I think part of my struggle with being in Tasmania is that while my wildest dreams didn't include Tasmania they held aspirations of greatness aplenty. It's such a quiet backwater. I'm wasted here! (Oh the visions of grandeur!) I have friends in Lesotho working amongst AIDS sufferers, changing the world. Others work with recovering drug addicts. Still others work amongst Aboriginals. And me? I'm in beautiful Tasmania.

And there my quote is the key: "Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life."

I'm on my own journey. It's a different journey from that one I had anticipated, but it's mine. No one else's! And it's brought me to Tasmania, and what a treat that is.

So there's no grand New Year's resolutions from me, just a desire to do the creative best that I can with my life here in Tasmania. And who knows, maybe by the time 2008 roles around I'll decide that I am Tasmanian after all!

May you grow through life on your own journey wherever you may be - all the best for 2007!