Clean Slate.

I want to stop and thank everyone for the birthday wishes and support on my last post. It means a lot, especially right now.

I'm thinking right now about closed doors. I have a few of them in my life. Not many, because I prefer, as one of my favourite authors wrote, to leave them open, "never meaning to close them." But a few, and one more today than I did yesterday, even. There are things, though, that I don't want to take forward with me into this new year, and those are among them. I'm neither a child nor an adolescent any longer. I think I do a pretty decent job of facing up to my mistakes as an adult, by and large, and acknowledging when I know that I've wronged someone. Sometimes my own hurt gets in the way -- that's not right, but it is truth. And still.

And still.

If I've hurt you, at any point, please know that I'm sorry I did so. And know, too, that there is no-one for whom I'm still feeling ill-will. That isn't the open-armed invitation I'd like it to be -- because where there was hurt, there will be caution. I hope you can understand that. I'm working on it. In the meantime, well, there isn't room in my life for old pain. There are enough falls and bruises and hurts in today that it makes no sense to be hanging onto yesterday's -- or taking today's forward into the future.

The candle's burning tonight for cleansing, and forgiveness. For good things still to come, and for the new year -- for taking love and peace into it, and leaving bitterness and old hurts behind.

Up above me, wayward angels; a blur of wings and grace.
One for courage, one for safety, one for just in case.

I thought the light went out, but now a candle shines.
I thought my tears wouldn't stop, then I dried my eyes.
And after all of this, the truth that holds me here,
Is that this emptiness is something not to fear.

I'll keep wondering how we know where we belong,
After all the journeys made, and the journeys yet to come.
When I feel like giving up, instead of holding on,
Somewhere in between...

I'm just wondering how we know where we belong,
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn?
In the path of fireflies, and a single bird at dawn,
Singing in between here and gone?

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it holds all the things that matter most.