The ending of another year and a new beginning.  We have been hurled unceremoniously into 2014 and I’m still trying to get my bearings straight.  How time flies, the old clichè goes, but what is a clichè but a mass-noticed truth?  I have been thinking a lot lately, mostly because, yet again, I have a nasty cold at the beginning of this new year and have been spending a lot of time inside.  Most of my thinking is also dreaming and trying to sort out uncertainties.  For one, I am living in Italy, again and though it could just be the winter, I am unable to find the magic that once held me.  I think I’ve grown up too much in the past few years.  After having a baby, going through a breakup and moving across the ocean not once, but twice, I have been enveloped in practicalities and lost the time to dream and be inspired.

Dante, my almost 4-year old brings a lot of joy to my life, but also requires all of my time and attention.  Every decision I make now is not just about my life, but also his.  I want to think positively, I want to live noticing the good and not so much the bad.  I want a life of wonder, but I feel unsettled and not just a bit jaded.  I am 30 years old and can’t help but think that I’ll never get any younger so I need to appreciate this time, now.  I also think a lot about relationships.  I just do not believe in love like I used to.  I have become one of those practical, number-crunching adults like those in The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry.  Instead, this year I hope to find the curious, awe-inspired youth seeking adventure that I used to be.

So this year of 2014 will be a year of introspection, and hopefully, positive change.  I want to decide where I can be, how to feel settled and take care of myself and Dantino.  I will take this life by the horns and live it.  This year is not about finding someone to make me feel alive, but how I can become a person that makes myself feel alive.  And so it goes.