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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....
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The Death of Self-Pity

We ran out of dishwasher soap. All I could think to make for lunch was two pounds of squash. By the end of the day, my housemate had spread her papers, like the leaves outside, on the living room floor and buried her face in the cushions of the broken couch. Too much studying.
I just wanted to be anywhere else. Please. So, after supper, I grabbed a coat, my tangled headphones, and stepped out into the wet snow. I was the little girl who ran away from home with her handkerchief full of toys and raisins again. All I really wanted was someone to notice that I was having a miserable day. It took twenty five minutes of walking up and down the sidewalk, watching my shadow shiver, to go back to the house where no one had noticed.
I could blame it on being introverted. Don't we all need a little me-time? But I know better. There was a man once, who lived a constantly poured-out life. Even when Jesus went away alone to pray, He prayed for the Church, He prayed for the Father's will.
When I step back into the house, I hear the roommate's laughter. Self-pity is the poison of joy. I could turn my music up and drown it out and count, over and over, the ways this day has failed me. Or, I could go up to her room and ask her about her day, and just leave the complaints outside where the puddles will cover them. If we would just get our focus off ourselves, we might actually get something done in this world.
I make a bee-line towards the laughter as the shadow of the cross cuts the burden from my shoulders.

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