What lies ahead - 2012

This past year asked me to let go of big things. It felt like moving glaciers with my bare hands. Hard and cold. Enormous and overwhelming. In 2012 I sense that I'll have more help moving the furniture around the living room of my life. I hope my sense is correct. My hands are tired and my eyes have seen too much. My heart has bled itself dry. 

But this year was the gift of consciousness-shaping realizations. One massive realization that almost seems so banal it's not worth mentioning is this: Strange things happen to me that don't happen to other people. Here's a tiny example. All day yesterday, a latin phrase floated around my mind and I couldn't translate it. When I looked it up this morning it means, "the blood has been spilled." Even for me, this was a profound experience. Why didn't the words come to me in English? Why force me to bust out Google Translate to deal with my own thoughts? The Universe plays with me that way. And I'll be honest - I kind of like it.

In 2011 I reconciled that I'm different. I reconciled that I like being different and have no apologies to make for anyone else about how incredibly different I am. In short, I learned to shed - in a finally, once-and-for-all, good-riddance-to-bad-rubbish way - the idea that if I were only a smidge different life would be better or easier or ______. It won't and I can't. Chalk it up to me almost turning 40 maybe. But I'm done trying to be other, more, or else. 

The good news is that I'm facing whatever comes in 2012 with a new sense of freedom from constraint or apology. I'm celebrating that sense of okayness with myself as this month opens. What are you celebrating?