Across the threshold

Today, we cross into 2011. January 1 is always filled with so much potential and hope, commitments to ourselves and others (but mostly to ourselves), and a sense that we have the ability to shape our future in ways that belie whatever the year just ended held for us. I continue to travel in unknown territory, having begun 2010 in what I believed to be a viable marriage, and beginning 2011 alone, except for an aged cat. No one to carry me across the threshold of this new year. No one except God, and the friends who carried me through most of 2010.

Last year did hold blessings, of course, most notably a new job and a couple of chances to visit with my granddaughter and children. But the last 3.5 years have been brutal, and I am weary and shell-shocked, much in need of some rest.

There are plenty of reasons to despair, to curl inward and become defensive, or to lash out in anger at the injustice and pain inflicted upon us, allowing no one to hurt us further and affording no one any of our energy, love or kindness. But that way leads to death, it seems to me: death of spirit and the chance to be truly loved at all. It doesn't take much to extend oneself just a little, even in the midst of great pain, to remember that we all carry baggage that no one else can see, and that I don't have a corner on the world's market of misery. Extending myself a little -- to say 'thank you' or to help someone by holding the door -- can make a world of difference in my energy and my sense of self. Suddenly, I go from victim of pain to agent of healing. And maybe that's enough to help someone else across the threshold.