Over many years, I’ve had to start again, and again, and again. I’m sure others have also had to do this.
When I was in my sixth year of marriage, I had to start new with an 18-month-old son and a newborn daughter, when my 33-year-old wife died. Certainly I was confronted with lots of new things, including a new baby. The baby had the precocity to come without a mother or a manual.
After that and a 15 year marriage and another child, I was divorced without a job. Wow. I did have a relative who was able to take me in and a sister who took over my stuff for storage until I got started. That too, was all new.
My original Perspectives column was ended when the publisher’s editor’s building was shut down so as to build a new one. Forty families were out of space to live; I suspect that was pretty traumatic for many, and it ended the business of a useful publication.
Beginnings again can be exciting, traumatic, exasperating, helpful and truly wonderful, sometimes all at the same time. A speaker, I heard, said, “One should remember that to get anything done, one must first start.” Nietzsche wrote in The Will to Power, “Nothing is more expensive than a start.”
“New beginnings” is probably a redundant phrase, except we need to remember starting over is as much a just another beginning, with all the inherent possibilities as the first time around. We just need to get rid of all our thoughts of the negative emotions and attitudes we collected on the way. It’s like getting a new car. We rarely worry about what happened to the old one, and we certainly don’t spend much time worrying about how the new one will operate.
It’s important to remember, as we all begin again and again, what Montaigne wrote in Essays. “The births of all things are weak and tender, and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.” Horace wrote, “Once begun, a task is easy; half the work is done.” To put it more succinctly, be kind to yourselves…and have a very merry and happy season at the start of this New Year.
