Something Lost. Something Found.

My chronic boulder rolled back down the hill again last night.  I ran after it.  Maybe it didn’t roll down the hill actually.  Maybe it was shot into the sky like a rocket, bursting into a thousand and one shiny lights falling over Innsbruck.  Or maybe I swallowed it…washed it down with too many beers, a pigs foot and a variety of other tasty delights.  I think that is more likely since I can still feel a lump in my throat and my stomach is growling like a junkyard dog.  It’d be nice to think that its possible to ingest my boulder.  Digest it.  But I think I’m dreaming again.  I think what’s more likely is that I will climb out of bed tomorrow and find that my boulder waits for me.

The mandatory reflection that arrives on New Years is a wonderful thing.  A period at the end of a 365 day sentence where you can take a moment and think.  You can think about where you’ve been and, more importantly, where you want to go.  I like to think that Im an arrow…very Kahlil Gibran, I know…pointing forward.  Where I’ve been is responsible for where I am and where I am will lead me to where Im going.  Looking back at the last trip around the sun I am in utter awe.  So much about my life is completely different and yet it is also exactly the same.  Wherever I go, there I am.  The plight of an eternal optimist is an exhausting one.  Always finding the updside and anticipating goodness is not easy.  Turning loss into something found…lonliness into reflection…boredom into art…rejection into confidence …this is my task.

2008 was epic for me.  A full year alone in a new land.  Always without sex, often without friends and, more literally, without words, I can look back and see that my outward journies (of which there were many) are humbled by the ones that took me inward.  If spiritual growth could be measured on a bar chart, we would need Al Gore’s hydrolic riser to show how high up I go.  Seriously, I have learned more about myself in the last year than in my entire life.  It’s a gift in the shape of a fast-moving freight train and last night was my night to contemplate it.  It’s no wonder why, after far too many beers, the dam broke or, not to mix metaphores, I got run over.  The tears starting falling because I was feeling some superficial loss but they continued falling when I realized how much I found.

This is when the hard work comes….realizing what kind of woman I have become, what kind of human…well, it makes me grateful for the hard road that brought me here and also keenly aware of what I have to offer somebody else.  The time alone has been medicinal and if the universe dictates that I need more, well, I’ll find a way to make it work but it is getting harder to spin.  See what I mean?  It’s hard to be so positive but it’s all I know.  Looking back, for me, begs the question, “what’s on tap for 2009?”

I have the same resolutions this year as last year:  Talk less.  Say more.  Plan less.  Do more.  Generally speaking, I think that these are reasonable requests to make of myself and look forward to trying.  Aside from the daily grind, what do I want?  Well I would be forever grateful to have even half…even a fraction…of the adventure, surprise, learning, friendship and experience that I had in 2008.  I find myself now surrounded by creative and interesting people, new and dear friends and I have an opportunity to share more of myself with my community and it is my task to try.  I am hopeful that giving away what I have, what I am, will lighten my karmic load and keep me open so, when it’s time again (and I hope it is soon!), I can let somebody new in.

I think that’s enough deep thinking for today.  I think that…no, I know that I am a very lucky woman and I’m eternally optimistic that the next trip around the sun will be a hell of a ride.

Now, onto the nitty gritty details of my way, way too many beers…In a nutsell?  Friends.  Brixen House.  Supper Club Extended Edition.  Fireworks. Beer! YouTube DJ-rama.  It was fun up until the freight train part but, fortunately, that was at the end of the night and mostly alone in the snow…Some photos were hidden at the request of a friend but you can check the rest out here.  As for me?  Here are some of my favorites in no particular order…

I’d like to send a hearty thank you to my Innsbruck peeps for kicking so much ass and making New Years fun…I think we all have a lot to look forward to….

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.  ~Benjamin Franklin