La vie est belle - Life is Beautiful

My perfume for Christmas from Kaitlyn

The changing of time, the passage of an old year into a new is a cause for reflection. We look back on the landmark events of a good year, those dates we write down on the calendar with asterisks or use our red pen to draw little hearts around with fond recollection. Some years are marked with sadness when we must say goodbye to loved ones, try to make our homes in new places, battle things like illness, unemployment or difficult relationships. We readily bid those years adieu. But most years are a mixture of both where good and bad are interspersed with ordinary, non-descript days that are hardly remembered at all.
Life can be messy and complicated. It can be mysterious, exciting and mind-numbingly boring. There are days that test your patience and courage and determination and there are days that will cause you unimaginable delight.  This past year, seeing my granddaughter's face on an ultrasound caused a mixture of happiness and sadness I find difficult to articulate. With her arrival my daughter becomes a mother and I know that will stretch her and test her and reward her like nothing else in life can in all of it's beautiful messiness.
The coming year offers so much potential.  But I find that it is a lot of pressure to live up to. I woke this morning with a lot of messages about eating well and exercising, goal setting, resolution making. I like the idea of the first page of a book with 365 blank pages, but I also find it a little overwhelming. This year will play out as it will, already written in a book of the pages of the days of each of our lives and I will embrace mine as it comes, one day at a time.  Because above all else, I am convinced that life is beautiful.