Looking Ahead

I woke at 6:00am thinking about the day before me.

I've been on PTO (paid time off) since a couple of days before Christmas. Time off that I desperately needed to get my head together again. It wasn't all fun and games, though. Due to work commitments, I thought that I'd have to spend a lot of time working during my "time off." Thankfully, my presence wasn't needed all that much. Today, I'd planned to get up, fire up the laptop, and tackle all of those emails that I'm sure have piled up in Outlook before diving into whatever work had popped up during my absence.

As I lay in bed, warm under the covers in the dark, listening to Avindair's measured breath of slumber, getting out of bed became a much more difficult prospect -- and I began to think. On the precipice of 2009, I thought about the past year. I thought about the year to come. I thought about what I needed and wanted for myself and my family.

I want:
- To put work in its proper place
- To have time for Avindair and I
- To enjoy our children while they are children
- To be supportive of my son
- To be patient with my daughter
- To be in the sun
- To find more joy in life
- Happiness to outweigh sadness
- Certainty to outweigh fear
- Friendship to outweigh lonliness
- To balance work with play
- To balance want to's with must do's
- To see more of the world
- To have the leisure to learn

There's so much uncertainty in the year ahead that may affect all of us with the economy and the political landscape shifting. So much fear and hope in our personal lives with family and work. I'd like to say that I'm looking forward to 2009, but in truth, I'm hesitant about it. I won't make resolutions. I won't make promises. I won't make predictions. There's just too much at stake.

Today is New Year's Eve 2008. Time to put work in its proper place and log in for the last day of the year.