Happy New Year

 Happy New Year 

How I wish that it will be happy, at least happier than 2022! Oh 2022, what a year! I have to admit that I hated this year. It was a year full of stagnation, and one has to try staying numb watching the days and weeks pass by without doing anything to understand how painful stagnation is, how sad, how bitter, how humiliating stagnation is. 

Here I am, sitting like a rusty old wreck, trying to put on my usual worn out smile, throw a few sarcastic comments to continue my role as the cheerful clown. But even professional clowns get drained, fail to keep smiling, hate the eco of their fake laughs and just want to hide for a few decades. 

No new year resolutions. No optimistic plans and no enthusiastic declarations. I will keep gliding, hopefully I can. I told you, there are no plans, but still a faint hope of survival, or a dignified end. As a natural born quitter I have always dreamt of dramatic ends. I believed that I am entitled to have such closure to this phase of my life, or to this life. Entitled? Am I even entitled to anything? Entitled or not, this is a big question that lingered in my head for so long. Are we really entitled to be and to have? Then we are destined to fight for our dreams and hopes. Or aren’t we entitled at all and thus we should be grateful for every breath and bite that keep us alive. Alive? There is a legendary secret about life, and unfortunately I know how to keep myself distracted to avoid questioning myself. How many (I)s did I write till now? May be this is the real problem? My obsession of (I), (me) and (myself). May be it’s not an obsession but a sense of shame, (I) let (me) down, more than I can count or recall. Throughout the previous decades I have been carrying huge relics of my failures, and believe me they are heavy. 

Am I bitter? How I wish? I’m beyond bitterness, seeing myself being pulled away from the good days, the cheerful gatherings and the naïve excitements. I was told that I just don’t know how to be thankful to god, I have a problem with gratitude they said. With no energy or will to argue, I shook my shoulders and murmured something that sounded as if I was convinced. 

Can’t deny that I tried to resurrect myself every single morning. I look at the mirror, greet the Sisyphus tangled within me, and start the day. Art saved me, I have to confess, at least helped me to survive. I dove in different realms, more colorful, more vibrant and even more humane. Melodies of old songs, eloquent dialogue in a novel or even an intricate pattern all fill me with profound joy. I feel lighter, happier as if I’m the only one capable of connecting to such mysterious talents. 

Happy New Year they say, and Happy New Me I say, I wish and devoutly pray.