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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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Being Kind: Just say it

We sit there together, bum prints in the snow. His toque is pulled down over his eyes and he leans his head back, holding it in his hands. The river shoots out from under the ice in front of us, curdling the cold water against the bank downstream. I want to tell him how grateful I am that he took the whole day off to spend with his little sister. I don’t want him to know how much I need him. So, I don’t say anything.
            
A few days later, I pull open the glass door and run up the stairs in the music building; my backpack makes me hunch forward. Too many textbooks. I meet her blue uniform in the hallway. She smiles at me like she does every school day. She continues to mop the floor and I rush past her. I want to say something about her cheerful smile, her hard work. I don’t want to be sappy, insincere. So, I don’t say anything.
            
Later again, I pile my layers of coats onto my backpack to keep them off the wet floor of the locker room. I stand in front of a mirror and run a brush through my tangled hair. She comes up beside me and borrows the other side of the mirror to dab her face with skin-coloured cream. I want to tell her that she looks really pretty today. I don’t know her. So, I don’t say anything.
            
We build our own image, not theirs’. We build ourselves up, not others. Maybe we should take a risk and “in humility count others as more significant” (Philippians 2:3).  
            
I try it out today in the cafeteria. I sit beside her and pick away at my salad, wondering if I should say something. Just as I grab my coat, I turn to her, “You work at Tim Hortons here, right?”
            
She laughs. I’ve seen her laugh before as she’s filling up our roll-up-the-rims. “Yes.”
           
“You’re my favourite Tim Horton’s lady.”
            
Then, we talked and went our separate ways, smiling. A day can be made with six words.

           


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