New Year, New YOU! . . . or not . . .

The birth of a new year is just behind us. The year still has that new car smell, still squeaks when you step into it because it still needs to be worn in, could use a little more salt because it hasn’t sat long enough for all the flavors to mix. Then again, the New Year isn’t quite a car, pair of shoes, or a stew at all. As folks cheerily wish me a “Happy New Year” with smiling, shiny faces, my cynical self can’t help but interject (luckily only in my head), “Is it really a new year at all?”

This is the time of year when people join gyms and yoga studios, return to church, temple, and mosque, re-start shopping at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and the local farmers market. That last millisecond of December 31st morphing into January 1st offers us all a sigh of relief that we are finished with yesteryear and ready to start over. It brings us hope.

However, time is incredibly arbitrary, the way we understand it. Sure, time undeniably passes, but the way we mark time is far more connected to culture than science. Different religions and countries recognize different holidays, years, and even differ on which day of the week starts a new one. There isn’t exactly 24 hours in a day nor 365 days in a year, hence our ad hoc fixes to time like the extra second once a year, additional day every four years, and Daylight Savings Time.

Many of our time practices are archaic or socially constructed, like the school day starting in time for parents and guardians to get to work by 9 am and the school year starting and ending in time for students to help their parents with the harvest and pausing to celebrate WASP holidays like Thanksgiving and Christian holidays like Christmas. Even many holidays are culturally placed, like the contemporary date of Christmas co-opting the Pagan Winter Solstice and the contemporary date of Easter co-opting the Pagan Spring Solstice.

This is where my mind goes when it overanalyzes things like this. For me, the calendar date changed, sure. It’s 2016. I still need to finish the school year in the classes that I am teaching and taking, pay bills, clean out the apartment, find a house in this seller-friendly LA market, prepare my taxes, finish the requirements to certify as a foster parent, find a diet and exercise program that is healthy, fun, and not overly restrictive, finish some art projects, writing projects, and plan some get-togethers with friends and family. My overwhelming list of things to do leaves me feeling like the year is old and stale before it’s begun.

That said, my husband and I gifted ourselves with Beach Body’s T25 exercise tapes and adjusted our diet to include less fudge and other treats right after Christmas. We renewed our commitment to longer walks with our dog, Sadie. We shopped for more vegan and vegetarian food options and started cooking more, eating out less. Perhaps more a reaction to the indulgence of Christmas time than the New Year, but who’s to say?

Rich and I spent New Year’s Eve evening at the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Center. It’s the only place that I have ever seen such a ceremony for the New Year. We spend time in meditation, which I used to pray and listen, followed by a lighting of a tea light to mark an “intention” for the New Year. Mine is to let go and let God. As cliché as it may sound, this is my biggest struggle. I want to let go of a need for control, let go of a tendency to gossip, let go of comparing myself to others . . . the list goes on. As I lit my candle and stated my intention, I recognized my reverence for ceremony and symbolism while my cynical self antagonized me over the arbitrariness of time.

Two days later, Rich and I were sitting in church (we go to FAME LA). Pastor Boyd was his fiery, exuberant self, preaching on our need for unity with God to build stronger selves, family, and church. The message range incredibly true for me, affirming my intention and prayer to really let God. Then my optimistic self and my cynical self had a bit of a meeting of their shared mind. While time as we understand it and mark it may be a product man’s making, the reverence for its passage and ceremonies that mark what really speaks to our heart can simply be reminders. Reminders that rather than a New Year, New YOU, we can really choose a new moment new self or new moment renewed self every single moment of life. That choice, at least for me, will only come to fruition as I do my best daily to really let go and let God.