The more things change, the more they stay the same..

Right around the first week of December, I begin to realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. A new year, filled with so much promise and splendor (and jeans and black boots). I get my nails done on December 31st and wear my round-toe pumps. I toast at midnight and immediately call my Momma :) It's not until January 3rd or 4th that I realize that it's still the same. The same work-weeks, the same blustering cold wind, and the same D6 bus. The same runny nose, the same mittens, and the same Stacey.

Because my birthday falls so early into the year, February 10th be exact, I spend a lot of time in quiet introspection (quiet, lol!), pondering what I've accomplished in the last year. Every year, I sit in amazement in all that has happened in the last year, good and bad, happy and sad, temporary and permanent. How did I have time to fit it all in?

525, 600 minutes. A year. It's so hard to believe that so many minutes synthesize to become a year. All it takes is one minute to change things for a lifetime, for better or worse. One minute to befriend or defriend someone on Facebook :) One minute to comfort someone, one minute to reduce them to tears or tear them down. One minute to hug someone (longer if you're a skilled hugger), one minute to kiss someone (if you suck at kissing :), or one minute to turn around and make sure that's the last time you see someone. It blows my mind how one minute you are alive and breathing and the next you may not be. You may be a memory. I'm so upbeat!

In the last 525, 600 minutes, I have been reminded countless times how much can happen in a minute and how much of an impact it can have on my life. I've also been reminded just as many times of those that have been with me through all of the ups and downs and in-betweens and I've been surprised! It's not always who I think will be there. I don't do well with surprises, but I'm trying to be patient and take it one minute at a time. I'm learning to take something with me from each minute; the good ones and the bad ones.