Happy New Year! (almost)

There is for sure gonna be more music
in 2016!!!!!!!

New Years Eve is one of my favorite holidays.  There are three main reasons for this...

1. It is a secular holiday.  There is no religious tradition that lays claim to it.  It is a holiday open to anyone to celebrate in the manner they choose to do so.

2. It's a holiday for adults.  You can be too young for New Year's Eve, I mean you have to have lived long enough to have a few regrets behind you, but you are never, ever too old.

3.  I love that we have a day in which we take the time to assess where we have been and where we hope to go. In our go-go-go lives this is not something we often take the time to do and while it might seem like nothing more than a day to take down the old calendar and put up the new, I believe this sort of intentional reflection is important.  New Year's Eve is the annual reset button and the fact that so many of us do it at the same time feels like a collective deep breath. 

New Year's Eve is a reminder that no matter how much we have struggled, or how much we feel we've failed we recognize that there is always the opportunity to do better. Whether measured in moments, days, months or years all things in this life are temporary.  New Year's Eve is the chance to acknowledge and celebrate that. 

Normally this is the paragraph where I'd summarize my year by listing my successes, failures and struggles, and then ponder my hopes for the next year, but this year instead I'd like to just take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of this past year. 

This year I witnessed people and communities stepping up to help friends in need.  I shared creative space with folks I'd only dreamed of ever collaborating with.  I saw so many individuals who stepped up to speak on behalf of those without a voice. I was brought closer to old friends and made several new ones.  This year for sure had its ups and downs but it was the people that made it a good one.