Happy New Year!

Yesterday, Dec 31, 2017, we looked over our year of photos and reminisced. What a year it was! Cyprus, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Ireland, and France.  Germany does it right; with its Fasching Parades, cows coming home parades, fish fests, beer fests, onion fests, kraut fests, Christmas markets, everyone hike into the woods to have a beer at a castle- just because it's sunny out kind of fests and we end the year with fireworks and friendships - both new and old. Because when you are military, it's what you do, you build a family wherever you go.

This year came to an end in Schonaich, Germany at our friends place. Hanging with some friends of theirs and ours, we combined to make a great night of food, laughter, music, and fireworks. Shannon got to play his guitar with Rob (Tripp as some know him, or even Dos Gringos- just google it!)  We listened and requested songs, danced and sang along to Wanted Dead or Alive, Sweet Home Alabama, and American Pie. At midnight we all gathered outside and lit fireworks. Not just the sparklers but full on exploding in the air, cost a fortune in the U.S. legit fireworks. All around us, fireworks like this went off in celebration of the New Year. The sounds of missiles, rockets, and explosions in surround sound. Colors and flashes of lights in all directions. As I looked around at all of us smiling, laughing, and taking it all in I couldn't help but think what a unique and wonderful experience this moment was. It was an instance of intense happiness.  Gavin found the moment equally overwhelming.  I approached him and his friends to tell them Happy New Year, and he was crying with his girl-friend comforting him (our downstairs neighbor).  When I asked him why he was crying he said, "I'm so happy. These are happy tears."

I have been blessed to experience a lot of New Years eve's with wonderful memories like this. I love to stop at midnight and look at who I'm surrounded by, no matter where I am in the world, and I feel an intense happiness, a joy, and the most profound love. That moment is several seconds of pure surrender, of bliss.  For yogi's, a moment of enlightenment, where you are one with the entire universe and its maker.  Or kairos, a Greek term for moments where time stands still.  I hope as Gavin grows that he spends each New Years Eve like this; stopping in the moment to cry tears of joy while enveloped in love.

Each year I write a letter to God and I seal it in an envelope not to be opened until the following year. I opened my letter and read my words of pain and hurt of whatever struggles were contained in my moments at this time last year.  And after reading it, I see how much growth the year contained and how many prayers were answered in His own good time. And I write words down again, prayers of hope and love and for what's to come. I love these times of reflection. It's in my words to God that I see the big picture to how my world grows and changes in a natural pattern of fate.

This morning, I crawled into bed with Gavin, with a bit of a champagne headache and watched him sleep. I cherish this moment and look at how much he has grown and changed. When he wakes up he wraps himself in my arms and sleepily I say, "It's 2018. What do you think you want to change or improve in the new year?"  And he replies without hesitation, "Nothing. I'm perfect just the way I am."  I laugh of course at his assuredness that this is truth and think of the conflict I feel in this statement. He is perfect and at the same time, not, and I love him so much more than words can express. Kairos... and time again stands still.

Happy New Year all my lovelies! May you each have a year of blissful kairos moments.