Saturday 31 December 2011

happy new year

i've had a nice break from blogging over the past week. mostly because i've been away on holiday. we spent 4 nights at a beach not too far from home, and not too far from civilisation. i love swimming in the sea, but only if there are decent waves. there's something about a big wall of water coming right at me that i find exhilarating, for some absolutely unknown reason. perhaps it's the adrenaline rush and the fun of jumping over it and not being pulled under. who knows, i stopped trying to understand myself a long time ago!

then there was the swimming pool at the motel we were at, with a spa pool built into a corner of it. so straight out from swimming in the sea, we jumped straight in the pool, then when we got tired of that, had a soak in the spa. finished off by a nice hot shower back in our room. lovely way to spend an afternoon. we also managed to fit in shopping, horse-riding, sunset walks on the beach, tv, reading and shopping.

i'm definitely not one for roughing it. i have no interest in camping, can't put up a tent, won't do without electricity and all the other comforts of civilisation. and yes, i know it's a disgustingly privileged way to be, considering the way that some people have to live. i don't justify it, i just know that if i'm going on something called a holiday, then it has to be in a way i'm going to be able to enjoy. i know that even being able to afford to have a holiday is a privilege in itself, and it's certainly not something i take for granted.

in the dying moments of 2011, i've written a post at the hand mirror about the increasing tendency to treat identity politics as somehow taking away from class politics. i think it's a pretty stupid way to view the world, but you can read about that over there - and apologies if the bad language is likely to offend. i just needed to get the anger out of my system.

and as i said over there, i'm not in any kind of reflective mood. i don't want to think about the year past or the year ahead. i just want to enjoy this quiet time which is also a privilege, and enjoy the fact that i don't have to turn up at work for the next couple of weeks.

but i'm not so churlish that i won't wish you all a happy new year. i hope that the new one is good for you, or that you at least have support during the not so good moments of it. seeing as i started the post talking about the sea, i'll end on that note. someone once said that life is like waves in the ocean. when the good times are with you, remember that like a wave they will recede and be replaced by bad times. and when the bad times are with you, remember that they will recede like a wave, and be replaced with good times. for some reason, this has been a really useful piece of advice for me. it helps me to grit my teeth during the bad times and wait for them to be over. and it helps me to not take the good times for granted.

2 comments:

Deborah said...

This post is *so* helpful to me. Over at my place I've written about 2011 being a meh year... and, really, it has been. I think so many of us are still grieving for people in Christchurch. But I love your thought about the waves of good times and bad.

And I loved hearing about the good time you had swimming in the sea. It made me want to race out and find a beach right now.

Happy New Year. May 2012 be a good year for you and yours and for our beautiful country.

stargazer said...

thanx deborah, and so sorry that the past year wasn't a good one. i guess at times like that, it helps to cherish the things that are still positive in your life, if for nothing else, because it gives you something to hold on to as you weather the negative stuff. but sometimes even that doesn't help, and you just have to resign yourself to feeling miserable for a little while.

hope for all the best in 2012 for you as well.