Historians, New Years and Blogging

Time for the traditional Happy New Year post. I do hope that everyone had a wonderful time last night, but more even more I hope that everyone has a wonderful upcoming year.  May this year have less drama, less upheaval, less pain and suffering that any before. I have high hopes for this year. I have hopes that my husband will not be unemployed again and we won't have to move!  I have hopes that my parent's marriage will grow stronger. I have hopes that a war will end, so my brother and someone else's brother won't be sent to Afghanistan. Maybe a war will end and another won't start. Maybe a new generation of leaders will see that diplomacy, not guns is the way that we need to learn to communicate. I have hope that a new generation of children will go to school and help lift their families out of generations of poverty.  I have hope because without hope...what do we have?

This last year has, personally been one of great joy, and sadness.  I have a hard time sitting here and thinking back because it all seems to run together into that which makes up life. I think that is the most important reason for me to blog. I have a hard time remembering individual moments and this is a record that I can look back to.  It is the historian in me that loves blogging, loves the idea of the written word (okay, typed) put down for not only myself but others to read, to recognize their own pain and struggles and to engage in a relationship and discussion where we can learn from one another.  

I don't want to write to and for myself though. If this were the case, I would be continuing those countless journal entries that most of us started when we were overly emotional teenagers that desperately needed an outlet.  I wrote in the first 20-50 pages of hundreds of journals and notebooks.  I wrote the same things over and over again, about how sad and depressed I was, and how I suffered from my past and self doubt.  Some of that was being a teenager, but most of it was my constant battle with depression.  It wasn't until I was able to be open about my battle, not only with my friends and a therapist, but frankly--with myself; that I was able to start making positive changes in my life.  

So this is my hope in blogging--that a year from now I can go back and read this entry and every entry that comes after it, and learn something about myself.  Learn about how I handle myself in my marriage, in my friendships, in my job and see how I have changed, and haven't. 

Where will I be in a year? Will I be working? Will I be a mother? Who will my friends be? Will the surgery have made for a healthier me? This last year was wrought with illness that never seemed to go away.  

Will my marriage be a stronger one? Will I be less annoying (please say yes!)? Will I finally learn to crochet a granny square and make something other than a scarf?  

What questions do you want to ask yourself in the next year? 

New Years Resolutions....

I currently don't have any...I shall think on it, and get back with you, however I constantly wonder if these resolutions ever make a real difference.