The Yearly Theme

Some years seem to come and go without a lot of fanfare.

Other years seem to come with their own theme in tow. For example:

• 1989: The Year of New Beginnings (graduated high school and started university)
• 1994: The Year of Studying (working on my master's degree non-stop)
• 1995: The Year of the Great Move (moved overseas for the first time)
• 1997: The Year of Uncertainty (moved back to the US and had to decide what to do with my life)
• 1999: The Year of Accidents (The Boy and I were getting married and it seemed everyone tried to have a major accident of some sort)
• 2004: The Year of Moving (The Boy and I moved a lot...5 times, to be precise)
• 2006: The Year of Deep Unhappiness (the less said the better)
• 2010: The Year of Great Joy (all I can remember are good things)
• 2011: The Year of Loss (deep, close, personal)

It's only the beginning of April yet I feel this year seems to be ripe for a theme already - usually I realize there is a theme around October.

I'm thinking that the theme will be 2012: The Year of Change.

What kinds of change? That's still to completely shake out, but already I can see that the end of 2012 is most definitely not going to look like the end of 2011.

The crazy thing about change is that, by and large, it's not something to get excited about. Change can be scary and it certainly is usually uncomfortable. But change can also allow things that aren't good to become good - things that we've said are ok to be acknowledged as not ok. Once that happens, we can finally start to breathe again.

And that's the kind of change I'm hoping to have this year.