Dim bulbs and plastic icicle strands cling to roof corners, holding on for a few final moments of joy. Christmas wreaths hang from doors, soggy with morning dew. The first day of the new year. A sunrise full of new hope, fresh beginnings, and unknown opportunities, yet right outside my window I see clear pictures of the old refusing to go.
What once glittered and sparkled throughout my small, quaint neighborhood now serves as reminders of happiness now faded as distant memories. Light strands dangling without power, bulbs empty of cheer, yards spotted with figurines ready to be packed into boxes and forgotten until next year.
Leftovers of the old year settling like stacked Tupperware in the fridge. Out with the old. In with the new. But when is the old gone and the new appear? Because right now, I still feel heavy with sleepy eyes, my pajamas worn from the end of last year, but my mind’s eager to jump into something fresh. The morning of a new year—a doorway to something. Something good, I hope.
The old year lives on my skin in the perfume from last night. In the dog fur sprinkled on the floor. In every text thread that continues on from yesterday’s conversations and the wrinkles around my eyes that already started to form.
I jot down goals: Read more. Watch TV less. Hit pilates classes. Resist the couch. My pen feels powerful as I make the plan. The paper soaks in the ink. Time will tell. The days won’t lie, and my outcomes roll out as the new months pass, quickly becoming old. The new turns old—it happens so fast. Like the Christmas light prongs that snuggled into outlets beaming joy through the town that suddenly hang as lazy symbols of one who took too long to step into the new and tuck away the old.
So perhaps the “new” happens slowly. Bulb by bulb, bin and bubble wrap, and sweep by sweep. I won’t transform into the person I desire to be at the stroke of midnight. And that’s OK. A bit of the old still sits and waits to be tidied up as the morning sun of a new year shines. Old and new existing peacefully together, moving like footsteps. Time marching on.
