I'm sitting in front of this screen thinking two thoughts to myself: where the hell has the year gone, and why the hell did I let yet another year go by without making New Year's Eve plans until the eleventh hour. I do that every year. My friends and I start vowing to each other early in December that this year will be different; this year we'll have our plans set long before the 31st. Yeah, right. This doesn't seem as all-fired important to me at 30 as it did at 21, 22, but, you know, I still like the nightlife, like to boogie, etc.
Anyway, the first thought is the one that hit me hard. I can't believe we're heading straight for 2003 already. This past year is a blur. Every year around this time I get all reminiscent and nostalgic (hardly surprising given all the year-end wrap-ups on TV and in the papers), and I start thinking about the future and how quickly the days of our lives pass. I want desperately to savor this time in my personal life, because I know that before I know it we'll be barrel-heading toward July and our wedding day will be upon us. I want to enjoy the planning phase, enjoy this time with Joe and our loved ones, enjoy these "todays" as much as we can.
On a larger scale, I often find myself becoming quite reflective as we edge toward a new year. The world around us is such a scary place, and seems to be only getting scarier as time passes. Before 9/11 I don't think I ever truly stopped to assess the state of life beyond my little corner of the world. I mean, I've always been up on current events and I try to do my part to make the world a better place (whatever that means), but nothing really ever touched me as it does these days. I never felt as vulnerable as I do now. I don't know if that was the cockiness of a twenty-something or the inevitable result of growing up untouched and unscathed by the horror of humanity's ability to destroy one another for no good reason. That horror, of course, was brought to our own shores in 2001, and it has forever affected the way we live.
As I watch television and read the papers, I'm terrified to think that we're fighting one war, about to start another (thank you George W.), and possibly gearing up for a third. Were things ever this bad before? Terrorist plots, suicide bombings, unjustified hate and terror...all in the name of what? Religion? Not likely. Show me a religion that condones murder, torture, hate, and destruction. What the heck are we doing?
And that's on a global scale. What about the domestic issue we're facing these days. A sniper down south who wiped out innocent people as they went about their daily lives. Little girls who were abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered. And their numbers came fast and furious. The FBI/Mob ties that led to the senseless murders of some good, some not-so-good people. The church sex abuse scandal that's rocking the nation (and started right here at home thanks to Cardinal Bernard (above the)-Law. (Don't even get me started on that!)
Oh the state our world is in. Let this be a better year. Be careful and be good to one another.
Thought for the New Year: Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.
UPDATE:
Well, New Year's Eve planning turned out to be a moot point as Joe and I both ended up feeling miserable by 7:00. I fell asleep by 9:00, he woke me at three minutes to twelve, we gave each other a New Year Kiss, and I fell immediately back to sleep. Woo hoo. Party animals.
It's after 1 in the morning, I just returned from seeing Catch Me if You Can, which rocked, and now I'm sitting in bed with this computer on my lap all happy because I finally got this site up and running and I feel like a kid at Christmas! Woo hoo! Joe is sleeping next to me, no doubt dreaming about how to disable this machine without me knowing. Everytime he turns around lately I'm on this thing...I'm obsessesd, I know.
So this will be a short first entry because I'm not feeling terribly insipred at the moment and my eyes are like bleeding from all the staring into this screen I've been doing lately. Plus, I'm too tired to be witty and charming. Plus, I....we....have to get up and go to church in the morning because we need to talk with my pastor about our wedding plans. In particular we have to make sure we actually have a place in which to get married. My church is a bit too small and the church we're thinking about isn't confirmed yet and I'm all nervous about that. Oy.