Out With the Old and In With the New

“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” Herman Hesse

This past year has been a strange one. Extremely eventful in some ways, and incredibly uneventful in others. As I sit here today reflecting on the past 12 months, I’m not even sure where to start or how to list or categorize things. So I won’t. Suffice to say that a lot has happened, and very little has happened, all at the same time.

This year as I anticipated the holidays, I was aware of how different they felt. Rather than the big family gatherings we typically plan, we were planning very small affairs, with just our immediate family or perhaps a dinner with one other family from our “germ family” (also known as our school cohort). The pace was slower, I had more time to get things done, and I was able to relax into the season. Now that we are at the end of it and we are turning the page to a new year, I am aware of how different the ending feels. In previous years, the fast pace and planning and execution of multiple large family affairs, while exciting and fun, has left me feeling exhausted and done at the end of the holidays. I often spend the week between Christmas and the New Year sort of waiting until I can put everything away and get on with life.

This year, however, it feels very different. Christmas came and toward the end of the day I had a case of “the feels.” It had gone by in a bit of a blur despite the slower pace. I think some part of me had expected it to feel longer, more tangible…something “different.” It was quieter, yes, and more relaxed. Perhaps even a little boring at times. Yet it still went by rather quickly, and in a bit of a blur as my kids tore open presents and jumped around all day from new activity to new activity. In many ways, it was the same. At the end of it, though, I wasn’t ready to see it go. We spent the entire weekend continuing to listen to Christmas music and watch Christmas movies. This year, I was holding on.

I find myself doing quite a bit of that in these last days of 2020 and first days of 2021, ironically enough. I’m holding on. To many of you it probably sounds crazy. It’s been such a hard year, what could I possibly want to hold on to? Perhaps I’m holding on to the fantasy of a different year, the one that didn’t happen. I’m not yet ready to let go of 2020 because it didn’t meet my expectations and part of me still wants it to. Part of me wants the do-over and I’m not completely ready to let that idea go. I’m holding onto things I wish I could control and make different but can’t, things I wish I could prevent but can’t. I’m also holding on to the parts of it that have been a blessing—enjoying the slower pace because there is less to “do”, spending more time with my kids (even though that has also meant feeling more impatient and frustrated and yes, yelling more). Perhaps part of me is holding on because I’m afraid of what 2021 has in store. There are many unknowns in the coming weeks and months and most of these are things outside of my control, some of them potentially rather stressful and unpleasant. What if it’s not better, what if things get worse?

It’s time to let go. I mean this not only in relation to the holding on I find myself doing as the holiday season ends and the page on the calendar turns, but also to all of the fantasies, disappointments, wishes, expectations, and fears I have stuck in my mind. They create suffering, and in the end, the end of the year and the beginning of a new one is really only a symbolic change—one we have created and exaggerated in our minds.

The calendar has changed from 2020 to 2021 but the flow of time—the passing of moments—has not. While we like to convince ourselves that New Year’s Eve brings us to a place of “out with the old” and New Year’s Day to “in with the new,” that is really no different than any other change in any other moment at any other time. As every single moment of every single day passes we have a moment of “out with the old.” As every single new moment of every single day arrives we get “in with the new.” This doesn’t just happen once a year in a huge way on January 1st, it is always happening. Our efforts to hold onto the moments as they pass, for whatever reason we try to do so, are a source of suffering. Just as our efforts to unload all of them at the end of one year and collect a mass of new ones the next day is likely to create suffering when we can’t actually achieve our lofty expectations.

So as we turn the calendar page this year, let it be a hopeful symbol of change and good things to come, and let’s allow it to motivate us to make changes and commit to new habits. But as we do this, let us remember that it is symbolic. Let us also allow it to serve as a symbolic reminder that this same page turns in every moment of every day, that holding on to what is passing creates suffering, and that letting go is necessary not only when things have been difficult and unpleasant as they have in 2020, but also in each and every moment, in each and every situation, if we are to find balance and happiness.

For it is not the situation that creates the happiness but rather our ability to let the moments flow naturally and live fully within each one of them. So let go, and while we are thinking and saying to others “Happy New Year,” let us also be thinking “Happy New Moment.”