you say you want a resolution?

i'll be honest.

the holidays really aren't my time.

"oh dear!" everyone gasps, when i say such a thing. "surely...surely you love the holidays!"

i do not.

late november through early january is the time of year when the universe likes to try and end me. stop me. stomp me. hate me. make me hate back. and smack dab in the middle of all of it lies christmas. the hap-happiest seeeeeeason of all.

dear friends, i have suffered two broken hearts, two broken cars, a move, a lost job, and more than one family tragedy during previous decembers. i did not want a repeat, and so this year i put down my head and knit. i hoped that the universe would forget its vendetta against me. but it did not.

i won't go into too much detail. the most salient tragedy was the one that befell my computer, rendering me blogless from just before christmas to just after new years. there was car stuff, there was health stuff, there was personal stuff.

but in the middle were presents and family, and at the end of it all, was survival. and it won't be "the holidays" again for a long time. i'm really just now recovering.

this is not in the way of seeking pity or sympathy. we all have our good times and bad. and in a way it feels cleansing. i feel i pay in full on my karmic debts at the end of the year. if i could do that with my finances, well, i'd have a lot more yarn.

but it leaves me a bit behind the ties. only last week did i really raise up my head again and fall back into the new life in the new year. as it stands, i've been thinking about resolutions, and new starts, and things that we let define us.

without getting too involved or personal, or airing my dirty laundry on the world wide interwebs, i've been thinking that maybe after all the "ick" that comes at the end of the year, i need to look at things anew. i need to stop expecting the bad and start seeing the good.

what if knowing that this december was going to be wretched, helped to make it more wretched? what if expecting to be disappointed made it more painful when the disappointment came, and less pleasing if it didn't?

spinning and knitting returns soon, and my blog resolution is not to leave you so long with no word from me. but my real life resolution?

2008 is the year i'll expect better for myself.

after all, someone who can do this:

ought to expect good things.