The Old Year is nearly Done

Well, it's the last day of 2004. Last year at this time, I would have been looking out the window of the century old haunted house I shared with my then boyfriend. I would have seen nothing but black out there because the house is in a tiny village where there are few lights to brighten the darkness. Tonight my desk is placed beside a different window. I peek through the blinds to see the lit sign for the motel across the street, advertising vacancy. I see streetlights lining the curb in front of my apartment building, and since my building is on a street corner, I see the lights of the Old Island Highway, and the few cars travelling up and down that road. It's a scene of small city life - so different from what I've known in the past decade, but almost identical to the scene outside my apartment window when I was in my late teens and early twenties and living in the city of Vancouver.

I can't believe all that has happened this past year. Last New Years, a friend suggested to me that perhaps 2004 would be a year of many changes. He was right. I'm so happy to be in the place where I find myself tonight. The positive emotions that come when I think of the changes I have made in my life, are so huge, I can hardly begin to describe them. I feel like I've recovered from a disease thought to be incurable.

I often think about what will be my future. Although I need to take this time just to relax into my present. To recover from things in my past, and from some things that are ongoing. But my future ... that's exciting to think about. Where will I be? I have a sense that I need to lighten my load - to not take on responsibilities. For example, I briefly considered buying a little canary. I was so excited about the idea. Then I reminded myself, I want to be unencumbered. I feel awful saying that, I don't consider pets to be baggage. It's just that I feel a pressing need to be free at the moment. And I still have my goldfish after all. If I buy more pets I will soon have a menagerie. It's been known to happen. If I were to list the animals I have kept in the past twenty years, the number would be close to one hundred. So it's best to not start that ball rolling. Best to not buy a canary at this time.

One of my dreams is to take a solitary trip on a banana boat. I have this romantic view of how that would be. I would have my little compartment where I slept. I would probably not have access to a computer, so all my poems would have to be written in longhand, or on my alpha smart. I would bring my camera. I imagine myself spending all my time alone, as I tend to do. I would come out in the moonlight, maybe with a blanket around my shoulders, and wander the decks. I have a sense that I would be incredibly inspired artistically. I would write enough poems to fill a book.

I feel completely blissful and content. Life is a wonderful thing.