Shana Tova

Tonight is New Year's Eve in the Jewish calendar. Tomorrow is the first day of the new year.

And in my reflection of the year past, and looking forward to the year coming, there are things I would leave behind, and things I would welcome. This has not been an easy year. I have learned many difficult lessons, and grown in unexpected ways. I am blessed in many ways, and challenged in so many others, and in my awareness that challenges are blessings in their own rights, I do my best to greet them as such.

This year I have seen a dream come to fruition in the opening of my (yes, my) Middle School program,  I dealt with tremendous grief when I had to leave it, and I have now surrendered it willingly and happily to my successor. This year, I have made surprising new friends, and created strong bonds of mutual support with people with whom I have never even shared a cup of coffee (but we've shared far more important things), while my social life in person dwindled and my circles shrunk. This year, I have leaned more heavily on my friends and family than I ever imagined I could, and in doing so, I have found that asking for help is a powerful thing to do indeed.

It has been a year of paradoxes. Of growth and healing and triumph and pain and frustration and yearning and acceptance and connection and distance and all the things that life is all about. Of knowing that while my body is need of major healing, my mind is too strong for its own good, and my spirit is soaring, while my emotional self evolves.

I have a feeling this coming year will be different. I think that while this will all continue, I will find my way through it, and reach a place of wholeness and clarity that will envelop the paradoxes and cradle them, much like the yin-yang.

I wish for myself, and all those around me, and everyone in the world, a year of peace, balance, and love.