2013 Good News Jar

SO glad to say hello to a new year.  I know it's just another start to another month, but January 1 feels official, like the crap from the last twelve months has magically been erased and a brand new everything has begun.  When 2012 started I never would have imagined I'd be where I am now, one year later.  I tried to stay light, I tried to blog regularly, I tried to smile and hope and heal and believe...but 2012 just kicked my ass and the collective ass of my whole family.  The word for 2012 was LOSS, loss on so many levels.  Loss so shattering that the thought of March 16 still feels like a kick in the gut.  Major loss, yes, but also minor losses that grew into major losses when viewed through tear drenched eyes.  Deaths, unemployment, financial woes, feline issues, and sickness of body, mind, and spirit all swirled around the plugged up toilet that was 2012.  So 2013 reared it's head and really, nothing had changed.  Not that I thought it would, but it suddenly seemed so apparent that the turn of a calendar changed nothing but the month.  In reflection I knew there had to be a few good things that happened last year.  There had to be, right?  Not anything to erase the bad but some good regardless.  I remembered several glimpses of good and then I was stumped. The bad just overshadowed the good.  Then last week I came upon an idea on Pintrest and decided to give it a try for the new year.  I call it my 2013 Good News Jar, and the idea is for me and my family to jot down something good that happens to you.  Write one good thing on one piece of paper, fold it up, and put it in the jar. No rules other than that.  Write as many or as few as you want, but the idea is to realize how many good things happen all the time; kind of like a gratitude journal in a jar.  We will empty the jar and read them together on New Year's Eve.  This idea speaks to me.  I am an optimist, although that fact may be hiding in the muck of the past few years.  I always saw the good inside the bad, always, and believed in better tomorrows. I made it through 2012, a feat I seriously doubted I'd accomplish.  The good news jar will nurture what lives inside of me naturally, the resilience that has been kicked and punched and is now playing hide and seek; it's still inside, just licking its wounds. Time to come out of hiding and face 2013.  If any of you are moved to create a good news jar, don't hesitate.  It just might change your life.