happy new year

She thinks. She thinks about the year and the people in it and she is glad. It's the people that make it worthwhile. The people and the cat. She gathers up in her heart all the people she loves - the old friends and new, the sibling, the parent, the Christian brothers and sisters - and she is glad.

It's a strange sort of night, still and silent and worlds away from the raucous debauchery she can see reflected in the sky, just over there, beneath those clouds. It's not as though she begrudges anyone their celebrations; people need a focus to feel happy, they need something to reflect on, an excuse. She has been the same, in times past. She just wonders why they pour so much money and effort into a happiness that lasts as long as that one explosion in the sky, that drink in the hand, that pill on the lips. People are so happy to settle for less.

She thinks. She thinks about the year and the struggles and the smothering feeling of being underwater, the effort it was to breathe at times, to think clearly. She is relieved that those things are behind her, and even though she knows there will be more of those lightning-sand-bog-of-eternal-stench type obstacles in her future, she knows there will always be a way through. And she is glad.

There is champagne and cheese and quince paste and good conversation. Those things are all worthwhile, especially when lying on a couch in comfortable clothes, listening to beautiful music. The Fireworks Suite, eh? That Handel was a clever chap, wasn't he?

She thinks. She thinks about the year ahead and she knows it will be much like the years past - oh, different things will happen, but for her there will still be the same goal, the same striving, the same purpose. She prays and gives thanks and confides her hopes, knowing she has been heard, knowing that she is loved. And she is glad.