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Hope bookends for the old year and new one

I end one year and welcome a new one in between bookends of hope.

And this is in spite of realizing that I’m a chronic failure as I inch along these final few days of 2019, reminded anew that my journey from January to December has been another fast and furious one on warp speed.

It’s been a year pretty good on intentions, but pretty poor on performance, I admit with some regret.

I’m not on the 2019 dean’s list for being an overachiever or for even making some headway on a few resolutions I remember thinking about as December 2018 was about to draw to a close.

I vowed those kitchen cupboards would be organized.

I swore those boxes of photos would be sorted and made sense of.

I fully anticipated I’d dust off that never-used juicer and start making carrot and apple juice because it was good for me.

I planned to start practicing the piano again, using it for something other than a piece of furniture to showcase family photos.

I envisioned myself writing cards of encouragement on a regular basis to unsuspecting recipients.

I anticipated renewing and restoring relationships.

I’d do this.

I’d do that.

But here we go again, blink, blink — time to sing “Auld Lang Syne.” Watch the ball drop. Countdown time.

Yikes.

I had adopted Psalm 90:12 as my guiding verse for 2019 — “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

After all, I’ve told myself, it’s pretty presumptuous to assume we have this surplus of tick-tock time here on Earth to do what we’ve been created to do.

One of these days, the egg timer will ding.

Reason enough to get busy, get crackin’ and forge ahead, yes?

I’m guilty, though, of being lulled into a no-rush mode, having an attitude of all in good time, my little pretty.

This business of saying goodbye to one year and hello to a new one can be pretty complicated stuff that puts a person on a high-mileage, moody guilt trip.

The “celebration” seemed a whole lot simpler when I was little, enjoying on New Year’s Eve chips and dip and a can of pop — a beverage we rarely had in our house — and watching “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” on “Chiller Theater” with my oldest brother.

But no way am I throwing in the towel.

I’ve got hope — hope that things will be OK, that all will be well.

Give me a fresh calendar for the new year, a new legal pad and a pen or two, and I’m contemplating the future.

I have hope that the coming cycle of January through December offers 365 days of possibilities. Good possibilities. Good stuff. Who knows — maybe even one clean kitchen cupboard. Miracles still happen.

Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year — a 2020 filled with hope.

(Kiaski, a resident of Richmond, is a staff columnist and community editor for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times. She can be contacted atjkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)

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