Have you ever noticed that when you come home after having been away for awhile, everything just seems to look different, even though it isn’t?  All the things that you see, day in and day out, have something about them that has changed…

We drove up to our house just a little past midnight on new year’s eve.  The eight hour drive had been fairly uneventful considering that we had a sick baby in the back seat.  My favourite part is always coming home.  Its familiarity is so comforting.  Our bed, our cat, our spots on the couch, our routine…few things make me as happy as those small details that we tend to leave behind a few times a year.  It was all there…and yet it was different.  Just as it always is after time having been away.

It was also officially the last day of the year.  2010.  Done.  Gone.  Over.  Forever.  What a strange and yet liberating feeling.  While I’ve never really been a fan of new year’s eve {perhaps due to countless years of it being a disappointment}, there are no words for how much I love new year’s day!  A brand new year…fresh…hopeful…endless in its potential.  I love the renewed sense of possibility that comes from putting one calendar away and seeing a brand new one staring back at me.  I’ve always been a person who thrives off of structure and routine.  In turn, I don’t always cope as well as I would like to when things get out of sort or disorganized.  Having said this, clean slates become especially appealing to me; the opportunity to start all over again rings bells of satisfaction for the perfectionist lying deep within me.  So today – January 1st –  is my day!

The funny thing is that I find entering a new year very similar to coming home; it’s different and yet, always the same.  It’s familiar and yet, always a mystery.  Predictable yet still unwritten.  Amazing, isn’t it?

And then it occurred to me…I am what’s different.  While my home is the same…my city is the same…the road that I traveled to get there is the same…I am what has made everything different.  Because every moment spent living is a moment spent learning, which is a moment spent growing, which in turn, changes everything.  I am changing everything.  Each morning when I wake up, I am different than the morning before.  Each time I walk through my front door, I am different than the time I last closed it.  Each time January 1st rolls around, I am a different person than the last time I hung a new calendar.  My world changes because I am changing within it.  I am making a difference because I am the difference.

This can only mean one thing…what are you going to change this year?  What part of you is going to be different at this very same moment next year?  You are currently staring at 365 golden days waiting to happen.  You are holding a world of possibility in the palm of your hands.  What are you going to do with it?  What do you want to do with it?

Today is not just my day…but it’s also your day.  It’s our day.  So make it…change it…live it…

“I want to know what it’s like
on the inside of love
I’m standing at the gates
I see the beauty above
Only when we get to see
the aerial view
will the patterns show
we’ll know what to do…”

~ Nada Surf