I’m happy this year is almost over. To end the year less than auspiciously, the following has occurred in the past couple weeks:

i lost my good glasses. the expensive ones that actually looked ok on me and were so light they felt like a kiss on my nose.

i broke my camera lens. the automagic one that worked for most everything. it no longer zooms.

my back is even more broken than it was before the cortisone shots. my advice: don’t get cortisone shots in your spine. they make you older.

i found out that no matter how well you think you know someone, they can always surprise you, and not necessarily in good ways.

So, I end my year unable to read without a yard long arm, unable to record the big picture, bent over, and with fewer friends. There are lessons here, I just don’t feel like sorting them. I do know that this has not been my best year. In fact, it’s hovering down at the bottom of the heap with 1989 when my mom died and 1977 when my world broke into bits and I lost it all.

Recently, someone told me that I need to declare next year, “the best year of my life.” She read this in a book, I think by the same name. I’m dubious about this sort of declaring of things. It’s possible that to declare something to be the best or the most beautiful or the *est of anything, you could be limiting all the rest to a lesser place. You may end up having a terrible year and that year, being declared the best, will be the benchmark for all the rest–past and present. So, if something wonderful were to happen, since you’ve already had the best, it would be doomed to dim to something less. Or that perfectly poignant thing that happened long ago would be tarnished, not by age, but by a misapplied word.

I find this sort of thing disconcerting and dangerous and I don’t think I’ll be declaring anything in advance. In fact, I won’t be declaring anything after the fact either. I think I’ll just let it be what it is and let the future unfold as it will, maybe even with a surprise or two.

At any rate, I’m not hoping for the best or fearing the worst. I’d kinda like things to just end up even.