As I have grown, I have come to attach less and less significance to occassions like birthdays, wedding anniversaries and others. At some point, the radical part of my soul began to question why I attached significance to these occassions. A large reason was that I wanted an excuse to celebrate. I also wanted a way to make someone or myself feel special. While there is nothing "wrong" with either of those reasons, I found that I had come to rely on birthdays and other occassions to fulfill my need to celebrate or treat someone special. The presence of these occassions had eroded away at the possibility of me celebrating whenever I felt like it, instead, I was waiting for a specific day to do so. It began to feel like a unspontaneous way to live. So, I started getting detached from most occassions. As I explained this to Vamshi and found that he felt about it just as strongly; jointly we dropped occassion-oriented celebrations from our lives including our birthdays. Instead, we celebrate each day as it comes, we still go out on date nights and take efforts to spend quality time. We have also given big occassion like gifts simply when we felt like it. The surprises and excitement we have felt from these has been very special.
In doing all of this, we hadn't until this year let go of New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve was a big deal for me in my youth and I have hung on to it as the years have gone on. As I slowed down on celebrating other occassions, I didn't feel the same urge to dig into New Year's Eve but it kept happening, mostly because of the people around me. Then, we came to this year and hit upon the perfect opportunity to not feel compelled to do anything at all. As Dec 31st arose, I wondered if I could really pull it off. Could I shed a habit, a tradition that I had nutured and then hung on to for close to 25 years? I doubted myself. I even asked Vamshi if we should do something -- much in contradiction to our original plan to not do anything special.
However, as the day wore on, I found myself doing something very different. I started cleaning out spaces in my life - my kitchen, my desk, old bills, closing on the family calendar and budget or touching base with friends that I needed to and had been putting off. I was unconsciously closing on the year gone by and clearing the way for a new start. I had unknowingly created a new New Year's Eve (Day?) celebration -- one that fits with my current personality much more. Ordinarily, I would have spent the day preparing for a big evening event. Instead, I spent quiet time contemplating and closing on the year so I could start the next one with a few focus. I had never planned to do this yet it turned out to be one of the most satisfying New Year Eve celebrations I have had in recent years.
It now fascinates me to reflect on the innumerable possibilities that lie ahead when I can shed old habits and have the courage to not put new ones in their place.
Welcome 2007!
Comments