The year grows short.  2013 is running out and there is so much that was not done, not by many, not by me.  There are still 4 days left though.

I really hope that the new year is better than this past one.  It wasn’t a horrible year, just not a good one in a number of ways.  Still, for every bad thing that happened I think I can balance it out with something at least partly positive, maybe even a bit more so.  Maybe the final accounting does not balance completely but it comes closer when you try to spin it positive.  Even if you know you’re spinning it there is something about it that makes you feel at least a little better.

And sometimes feeling a little better is all it takes to make the next day, or week, or month, or even year seem a little better in advance.

What have you done in 2013?  What will you do in 2014?

I need to be a better dad and husband.  I need to shut up and listen more, like I used to before I figured I knew everything.  I need to eat better and exercise more regularly of course- probably like most everyone else.  I should be a little less up tight and worry less about things that just really don’t wind up mattering much.  I want to get my new businesses started and I want to be successful again.  I want to not worry about money, and life, and things as much as I have these last 12 months.  Relax and enjoy what time remains for me.  I want this coming year to be a happier one for my wife and kids and the small remaining families that we have.  I want my kids to excel in school, in music, in drama, and in the sports they choose to continue playing.  I want every day to be one that we can all remember with some degree of happiness and gratitude.  For nothing is promised or held firmly in writing for any of us and tomorrow may not come for any one of us.  That is what is life and has always been.

I want my life to amount to more than it has to date and I know it’s not too late for that if I just have the time and if I just work as hard as I need to, as hard as I know that I can.  I want to set goals and then accomplish at least a good number of them.

Outside my kids are building a snow ramp so that they can sled down the short hill on our yard and then catch some air and fly through it with excitement and big smiles.  And the sun is out and shining on all that white snow out there and it is bright and a beautiful day.  It was foggy, very foggy, this morning but it seems that now God is here.

That’s the way I would really like for my life to be like from here on in, starting in 2014.  Build the ramps and catch the air.  Enjoy and laugh and smile and just be so glad that I have what I have, to realize always that I have had a good life and may still have some very good and wonderful times and years yet ahead.

Since I want to believe that then I will.  How I look at it and how I feel about it is, in the end, up to me now isn’t it?

And it’s the same for you too- you just have to believe.