Happy New Year Father Time

So, here we are. In just a handful of hours, no more lucky ‘13, and onto the first day of a whole new ...twelve months of life.

It’s kind of funny that humans have to block things off in this way. It’s so ingrained in me that the first of January is the first of the year that it doesn’t often occur to me to think about how we, as humans, built that. We made up time. “Time” is a concept we need in order to understand cycles, aging, beginnings and ends of things. That was man-made, like automobiles and the internet. Without us, time doesn’t actually exist in the way we use it. Like – it doesn’t really exist at all. !!!

But time is very precious to us – to me. As I embark on this new year, and -in a few weeks - a new age to call myself, along with some enormous, “big-girl-pants” life changes, I have to say… time has been my best friend. Sure, I’m not a huge fan when I wake up late and have to rush to the train station, only to miss the 7:16 train because it decided to come at 7:14, and I gazed up at it from the street below, helpless (If only I had a lasso). But other than the rushing of it, time has been there for me in ways no human could be.

It makes sense to me that we call it “Father Time.” It’s as if Time understands something we do not, and pushes us forward while we resist it. Our ages. Our memories. We cling and hang on and try not to change like insolent children refusing to go to bed when we’re told, and we lose – every time.

But, as we grow, we recognize how it was all for our own good. We learn to appreciate him. Time has helped me learn how to continue to move on, no matter how much I wanted to cling to a moment of it. Time has helped me move on when every fiber of my being was filled with heartache and I couldn’t imagine feeling otherwise. With each day ending, and each new one beginning, he cleaned the slate for me. Time has been there to accompany me in the excruciatingly slow moments before an audition or performance, giving me a second to stop my pounding heart and clear my head. Time has been the parental figure allowing me to grow into my own, to blossom, to develop. And the hand on my shoulder, guiding me surely into the next step... The next year.

There is something nice about that divide from December to January. I’m perhaps a little superstitious, but I do believe how we enter in makes a difference in the year. Last year, I went into the new year cautiously… and I had a year of tentativeness in the midst of all the chaos. This year, I already have big plans for the upcoming months, and truly feel grateful for everything that ended in 2013, and everything waiting. No more caution. No more nervousness. Let time move us forward.

I hope everyone of you reading this finds the year ahead to be the greatest, most life-changing of years. I hope you ring it in joyfully, however you choose to. 

Happy New Year, my friends.