Opening? Closing?: New Year's Eve Reflections

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions; I've never been. I chase each day with the desire to get it right. I mourn each night over failures. It's about all I can handle.

I do, however, have this aspiration: To see in every door that seems to close a door that in fact opens. Many, many times this past year I allowed myself to dwell on endings, when in fact a new beginning was stirring elsewhere. An unforeseen virtual party for a book I feared no one would notice, for example. A new publishing home for a novel that I was afraid had run its course. A fear that clients gone quiet signaled clients who had forgotten—but that wasn't it, as it turned out, that wasn't it at all, for the clients are back, the friendships stronger than ever.

Wait. Wait and see. I'm taking that forward in 2010. In the meantime, we're headed out for dinner this night with friends we've come to love. They are part of the old. They'll be part of the new. And they'll make us laugh in the meantime.