It's a rainy night. Of course I have to post.

My heart always swells on nights like this, and I'm so full of things to write. But once I get to actually setting them down, pulling them outside myself, I've become uninterested. Tonight, though...tonight I force myself to punch the keys on this laptop. I need to pull this outside myself.

A friend of mine noted today in passing conversation how odd it was that we make such a big to-do out of New Year's. What's so great about celebrating a whole new year? he asked. It doesn't even always feel like a new year. Nights like this, though, remind me of why it's natural to pause and celebrate the beginning of something new. Yes, it's just another successive 365 days, but it's more. It's natural to stop because it's natural to need a new start. A redo. Not even a redo...a do altogether separate and different with no re's involved whatsoever.

[The rain's remarkably steady at this point, and I can't help thinking that water never seems to leave my tiny world...that it is both my damnation and redemption at times.]

Anyway, back to New Year's. In my opinion, I've let it become just a disappointing holiday...an excuse to wear extra eye shadow at best, and that I miss the necessity of it. When else do you have the chance to make life changes and people be accepting, even expecting it? We get the chance to say, "Hold up. This part needs to be tweaked a bit," and it's a-okay with the world?

[That was by far the biggest thunder clap I've heard in ages.]

I struggle with change. So much of it is forced upon me, but honestly, do I really face any more change than the next girl? We all have great things asked of us, whether we accept them or not. And the greatness of these things (for the sake of this post, changes) is relative...a sliding scale that we are not always atuned to. But these changes are not easy. I watched Adaptation today, and this stood out to me like nothing else. Meryl Streep's character says at one point in the film: "[Adaptation is] easier for plants. I mean they have no memory. They just move on to whatever's next. With a person though, adapting almost shameful. It's like running away."

So that's where I am...not an orchid, not willing to adapt and forget and run away...but still deep down longing for a clean start, a do instead of a redo, a chance to tweak and change. We'll see, we'll see.