Getting There

It's the end of another year and I feel obligated to reflect.  To stop and do something I rarely do, look over my shoulder and see what I left behind.  But that's difficult to measure.  That's difficult for me to know.  Because, on the surface, very little happened.  From this day last year to this day, today, I live where I lived.  I work where I worked.  I love who I loved.  I suppose there is comfort in that.  Worlds can easily be thrown into upheaval.  I feel fortunate mine has not.

All this quiet, this stillness, however, has afforded a major shift in perspective.  I've been stirring inside.  I've been scheming, as always, in the dark.  And it would be hard for me to say that nothing has changed.  

I might say 2011 was about laying foundation.  I'm ready to say that 2012 will be about building. 

Last night, I had one of those endless, frustrating dreams. I was trying to hail a yellow taxi in New York City.  Not for me.  For a friend.  I stood on the corner, my arm out high, and I watched the cabs pass us by, one after the other.  No one stopped.

I remember the dream-me thinking that I had too great a responsibility to this friend.  Because the subway was not running.  I did not have a car.  The bus was headed downtown only.  The taxi was, obviously, a hopeless case.  The dream-me said, We're not getting anywhere.

But the real-me knows better than that.