A Eulogy for 2007

So I wrote this on December 31st and it's a little out of date, but what the hell, I am posting it anyway...


Dear 2007,

I guess it’s time for me to see you off. Perhaps you think I should be doing some deep introspection now, thinking about what you taught me and how I’m going to start over in 2008. But in all honesty, that would actually be a disservice to you and your forebears.

2007, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions any more than I believe that things happen for a reason. I don’t think people change in response to some arbitrary date on a calendar, and I don’t believe in clean slates or in some internal “reset” button. My own life has shown me that the human experience is necessarily cumulative. Separating one year from the next might be a comfortable classification system to help order the world, but I have found that it’s a pretty useless way in which to make sense of the psyche.

I hope you understand and won’t hold it against me. I’m grateful for you – what you gave to me, and even for what you took away. But no year exists in a vacuum. So I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m not really saying goodbye to you at all.

Let me tell you what I hope for in 2008, which is in all honesty the same thing I aspire to every day. I can’t find the words myself really, so I’ll let Eddie Vedder tell you because he put it better than I ever could.


Excerpt from "Rise", lyrics and music by Eddie Vedder, from the soundtrack to "Into the Wild"


Such is the way of the world

You can never know

Just where to put all your faithAnd how will it grow

Gonna rise upBurning back holes in dark memories

Gonna rise upTurning mistakes into gold

Hmmm, I guess the word for it is transcendence?

With love and appreciation (and admittedly a tad of resentment),
-M