A new year

It will soon be 2012.  I don’t know what the new year will bring.  You don’t know what the new year will bring, either.  It is a leap year, a little longer than most years.

It is hard to believe that four years have passed since 2008.  A lot of the people who were my friends four years ago aren’t my friends anymore.

I have given away just about all the clothes I had four years ago to charity.  Or I threw them out.

I don’t live in the same location.

Prices have gone up.  At least that’s something that isn’t surprising.

I have fewer teeth.

In a week, I’ll be 54 years old.  I may or may not have mentioned this, but I’d like to spend all of 54 out of the loony bin.  It’s a lofty goal.  A year is a long, long time when they say you’re supposed to take things one day at a time.

To tell you the truth, I’ll be totally relieved when 53 is over and done with.  Right now, I feel like I’m tiptoeing around very, very scared, still very much in 53.  I am trying not to count the days.  Counting is kinda dumb.  I’m really that my birthday falls on a Sunday, so I get to be in church that day.

Tomorrow, I get to light the chalice at church, to bring in the New Year.  I get to do this because nobody had signed up for it.  So I signed my name in the blank.  Julie Greene.  That’s me.

I will be reading the Epilogue from Kenny Fries’ book, The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory.  I get to read from a book that has a long title because 2012 is leap year, a longer year than most.

I guess here on the East Coast in a half hour it will be 2012.  Happy New Year, East Coast.