Reflections of a Golden Year

In hindsight.

I should be sleeping, it’s after 3 am on the 8th morning of this brand new year, maybe it’s the hour and lack of sleep that is inspiring these random thoughts, I keep thinking about 2014, reflections of this past year.
The last month of 2014 I spent listening to and cleaning up a year’s worth of music I had collected during the year. It might sound like work but that is not how i see it. Nothing makes me feel my memories more intensely than songs I associate the memories with. I think you know what I mean. Certain songs can take me back to being 13, 16, 21…..and to 2014.

So much navigating life and the rollercoaster of emotions I processed through this music. Listening to some Beth Hart is always a catalyst for me, and as I went about musing over 2014 in hindsight a thought crossed my consciousness;  I’ve no clue where it came from, or the connection if any to my music menu tonight, but it interested me. Like many cultures I grew up with the folklore that said the year you turn the age that is the same as your birthdate is your “Golden Birthday. Some call it the “Champagne Birthday”  So me? I was born on the 14th, hence my 14th birthday was my Golden Birthday.

Following that folklore in my random thoughts it occurred to me that since it had been 2014 and that I was born on the 14th day 2014 was to be my Golden Birth Year!

Looking back to January 4th 2012- The date I began my life all over again…….

………Two years ago I opened the door to a tiny new sanctuary where there was only a hint to the many significant changes that would soon create what I have chosen to refer to as my “Second Season.” During these past two years I grew, mentally, spiritually, and physically stronger.

By 2014’s end I felt whole again.

Finally.

I thought a lot about the year 2014,and that my birth date is the 14th, I thought about every person, every event, every lesson, each that 2014 brought to my life,

And the changes, changes that don’t resemble anything I knew my life to be prior.
Right up to the end of 2014 I had the benefit of even more change.

2014 brought to me the lesson of what being alone single means in all it’s singularity. I found after first fearing the worst- the holiday’s alone- means that being alone has nothing to do with feeling alone. I have to admit that with all my bravado of declaring that I no longer will attend holiday functions out of a sense of obligation or old traditions that I soon was feeling fear. Fear as those dates got nearer that I’d find myself lonesome, AND miserable.

I’d not ever been alone on Christmas Eve in my life.

There were times in my life I craved being alone, snippets of alone time as any sibling and/or parent knows is a rare commodity. Rarely do I remember alone time that I was mindful of at the moment though, or even what it felt like to be alone.
I do remember being alone had nothing to do with me ever feeling lonely. I never connected being alone in the context of loneliness.
Today that context is often referred to by others because I live alone, I am predominately a solitary person. I find myself feeling compelled to negate the assumption made that because I live alone means I’m also lonesome. (Yes there are rare times) I’m fueled with rationalization that I want to explain.
But I don’t.

Living alone for someone who’s neither an introvert, nor an extrovert; but both, comes with mixed feelings AND mixed messages.
I’m fascinated by how many of us are navigating life as a single, and intrigued by the “tricks of the trade”of living life singularly.

I think embracing living a single life comes easier if a person has prior acceptance that being alone is not only just okay, but also emotionally intelligent. Time alone that doesn’t come with the sense of need to fill all the empty-space up, to not fill the silence in, this is a precious commodity of time that I find especially valuable for checking in with myself. To do a self-inventory of my life and who I am today.

One of the most precious lesson’s I’ve discovered during 2014 has been how vital my serenity is to my life. Literally. I realize immediately today when that serenity is being threatened to be jeopardized. I don’t question when my radar goes off alerting me to chaos that is approaching the fine balance I try to maintain. There was a time in my life when I didn’t trust that radar because there was so much outside interference, too much static.

2014 was the year I began to recognize how important to me living single is to my serenity. I’m not sure it will remain to be true for the future, what I do know is my expectations of what is needed for me to maintain the peaceful authenticity that makes life worth greeting each sunrise.

I’m not ready to give that up.

ttaylor2015