First off …

Happy New Year!

Now that that’s been said, I have to say something about 2012. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad. There were a lot of bad, scary moments. There were a lot of awesome, amazing moments. It’s like 2012 was some sort of weird year that didn’t know how to work. I don’t even want to think back about the ‘bad’ stuff because to some, my bad stuff isn’t even bad. But it was to me.

And that, I think is really the key to everything any of us do, right? No matter what someone else says, an experience is going to be different. It’s going to be interpreted differently. It’s going to be felt differently. What was super horrible to you isn’t to me and vice versa.

These differences are what make the world go ’round (to use that old expression). We can’t all be the same. Never will we be.

What we want out of our futures won’t be either because none of us come to a year, month, day or moment with the same past.

So, as I look into 2013 and see absolutely nothing (because I am not, alas, a psychic) I have to imagine it an unpainted landscape, a blank sheet of paper, an unwritten musical composition, an experience not yet had. It is whatever we make of it. There will be heartache. We will not agree on all things. Or any things. Maybe.

What then … do *I* want out of 2013? I want a measure of internal peace. Yup. I want peace about health. Peace about my kids. Peace and love with my husband. I want you to know about my books without me having to shove the mention of them in your face because I wrote them for me. I want to enjoy my photography … for me. I want to not offend anyone but be able to express my views—even ones that aren’t the popular, conventional tropes because they aren’t mine..

You see … all these are things that sit on my shoulders like weighted feathers. One moment it doesn’t feel like they are there … but they are. Just like all the bad from the past. Just like the little bit of worry comes when the future is unknown.

All I want is just peace.

For me.

Will I get it?

I honestly doubt it.

But that’s what I want, and I think I can start off getting peace by realizing I have to have peace with myself before I can ever ‘get’ it from others—if I ever even can.

And that alone has to be enough.

So it will be.

PEACE THIS 2013!