Living With Trauma: The Healers, 51

Happy New Year, Gentle Reader. And may we have many more. It doesn't look like the most hopeful of horizons, when you consider the fat little dictator in North Korea (he now has his own personal nuclear button, or so the rabid little Chihuahua in a used veterans' uniform would like everyone to believe) and the Great Deplorable occupying the Oval Office, and the problems in Venezuela, and our own industry of localized poverty and homelessness in one of the world's wealthiest countries. And I haven't even mentioned how far gone we are now on climate change from global warming. Did you get drunk enough last night, Gentle Reader? Did you stay up all night? Maybe you want to stay in bed a little bit longer. Maybe until 2019! Me, I've been up since seven this morning (local time!)but I had a good long sleep, having dropped off to dreamland at around nine-thirty or so and now all fit and ready for my first long walk of the New Year. For me, this is when spring begins, especially if the snow has already melted, and living on the balmy West Coast, of course I'm going to be all smug and annoying about it. But right now, the days are already beginning to get a little bit longer, perhaps by one or two minutes a day, so it isn't going to look like much, not just yet, anyway. New Year's resolutions, anyone? I don't make them, but if you would like to comment here about some of your own for 2018, then please don't be shy. I tend to make my resolutions on a daily basis: basically on how to be a better, kinder, more compassionate and more honest human being (with a sense of humour!). There are always little details to work on and to work out: how we interact with strangers every day, how we treat our friends and families and other loved ones, how we treat the environment, how well we take care of ourselves, how we do our jobs, how willing we are to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge. But there always should be a limit to self-improvement, or it becomes a kind of obsessive-compulsive slavery and all the enjoyment of life has been just sucked into the great vortex. I have pledged that I will continue losing weight over the next year or so. I'm down fifteen pounds since July and that is nothing to sneeze at. I think in order to be consistent with and faithful to this theme of healers of trauma in my current blogging, I can say this much. This year, I am going to try to be more patient and forgiving towards myself for not achieving my personal goals or living up to my own expectations, and I am going to be accepting, loving and nonjudgmental to those who don't seem interested or able to work on their own growth and improvement. By the same token I will refrain from being envious of those who seem to be better at it than I. In fact, I'm just going to forget this whole fascistic nonsense about self-improvement, for this year, and just focus on enjoying life, and enjoying each moment, and giving thanks to the God that I believe in for the gift of life, the gift of each new day, and of this present moment. And I'm not going to worry about it. And now, Gentle Reader, do enjoy this day, ignore the news, and get outside and embrace this beautiful gift called life.