And so it happens already, the end of 2019 and the end of this decade. I can’t say it really hit me or even bothered me until I heard some other people mentioning it: “the end of the decade.”
In some respects it’s the same as usual for me, and by that I mean that I’ve experienced for many (solar / Western) New Year’s Eve’s in different places and with different people that it’s become something of an occasion to remember just who I was with on that occasion. I can’t say this is a negative but merely an observation that this day has brought me into contact with a quite few people from around the world and, literally, around the world. It is one of the charms of travelling the world.
I don’t mean to denigrate the day for those who like to celebrate it but I can’t help but see that, at least for this world traveller, that this day is, really, just another day. All that being said, I also can’t help but note the passage of time. It’s with that thought that I think that every day is some sort of “New Year” for me. There is always something to learn, even if I don’t want to learn it.
Now, to be sure, the turning of the calendar year is an event but I’m not sure it quite holds up to the rest of the events that befall a traveller who doesn’t stay in one place. Every year seems to bring a new set of friends and a new place to celebrate the “New Year”.
I can’t say I mind it all but I do keep in the back of my mind that these years do flip by. Just yesteryear it was 2018 when I was in Canada with my family in different parts of Canada, then it was 2016 with wherever I was, 2012 in Malaysia, 2009 in South Korea, 2008 as my last year in Winnipeg, 2002 when one of my bands made a recording live recording, 1999 when we celebrated the last turn of decades and I remember some digital flag on TV counting down the seconds until 2000.
And so the calendars and years flips by!
I can’t say I think in terms of decades, maybe I’m not old enough. But I do count the years and see that these years do seem to fly by very quickly. Yet they get fuller every year. Be it language learning, work, family, travel, or whatever, the time seems to fly faster the “older” one gets.
Anyway, I don’t want to go on about the new years or the years that fly by. It’s 2019 today and tomorrow it will be 2020. I suppose in history it might go down as something but today, for most of us, it will be just another day. After all, how many of us remember where we were at the last turn of the decade? (I was in South Korea.)
And with that, I leave you with the New Year’s blessing that my family grew up with:
Сію, сію, посіваю.
З Новим роком вас вітаю.
Щоб сей рік було більше, ніж торік!
Happy New Year 2020 and Happy Future Year of the Mouse / Rat!