“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman
I don’t know where this quote came from, other than Neil Gaiman’s Good Reads page, which seems legitimate enough. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past me to intentionally share an illegitimate quote that said something I felt legitimately worth sharing.
About five or six years ago I decided I was too cool to be someone who cared about New Year’s Eve beyond wearing sparkly dresses, drinking champagne, and kissing. After all, it is just some arbitrary beginning that many of us happen to agree on, unlike the arbitrary beginnings you might set for yourself to start spending more time with your kids, eating less fast food, or saving money to travel. It’s everyone’s favorite joke, an easy punchline, to mock your own non-committal to this new year beginning.
For whatever reason this year, I am feeling a bit warm and fuzzy about the one following. I considered that maybe I just want an excuse to dress up, drink champagne, and kiss (a lot of kissing, actually), but I’m not someone who really needs an excuse for all that. It could be a Wednesday. I don’t mind. Being honest with myself, it may just be that I am caught up in the momentum of potential (the scary and exciting kind) that myself and my loved ones appear to be experiencing for various reasons.
What I want for myself and for them is what Gaiman has expressed (or maybe didn’t express) in this quote (which is maybe not a quote). So, I won’t go so far as to make a resolution in the formal sense.
How about a wish?
the Raven said, open your mouth 