What Shall I Do With Today?

The turn of the year has given me a brand new page on which to write. What shall I write? At this moment, 734am, on the first morning of the first day of the new year, I do not yet know. I awake in my bed, somewhat refreshed, somewhat sleepy. I did not party the night away, though I had invitations to three parties. I opted to remain in. As I told friends, I would be one less idiot out on the streets. That was explanation enough for me.

As for the turn of the year, I find myself both reflective and filled with melancholy. I do not yet possess the exuberance to say: I greet the new year with anticipation. I gladly bid adieu to the year just passed. Borrowing from Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message of 1992, I will paraphrase: 2008 "is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis."

As the year dawns, I find myself: 

• rich in friends but not rich in funds
  
• older but not necessarily wiser
• enveloped by a sense of regret about many things (academic, personal, profesional)
• faced with the prospect of dwindling resources on which to rely
• forced to bid farewell to friends who have entered the ranks of immortality
• drowning in the detritus of life to which I should have bade farewell years ago
• aching to hear the voice of my mother in the kitchen of our old house as she busily prepares the New Year's meal that would include black-eyed peas and cornbread
• confronted with changes I do not welcome and did not order
• evermore suspect that God has forgotten about me
• single, and heart-heavy, with no prospects
• precariously balanced on a precipice with one yawning abyss of "screwed up" and another yawning abyss of "fucked up" rising on either side
• drifting without purpose and unable to do anything but procrastinate
• suddenly in need of a cup of coffee and a happy movie

I am one who is constantly in need of being surrounded by people so that I do not feel so alone, when, in fact, I can honestly feel alone in a crowd.

I am one who tends purposely puts others first before myself in peril of my own wants, needs and desires.

I am one who craves the limelight, but I have no talents to force its beam in my direction.

I am one more individual who takes up space on this orbiting sphere and wonders what his purpose in life really is.

I'm not quite sure what my purpose in writing this was, except perhaps to fill a page with words in some sort of quest to figure things out.

I need me to kick me in the ass to gear up and get things done. Alas, my ass-kicking mechanism seems permanently disabled either through disuse or ennui.

I guess this has been my wallow in self-pity, an exercise that rarely bodes well for any who attempt it.

I will close with a quote from a Leslie Bricusse song, "What Shall I Do With Today," introduced by Petula Clark in the rarely-seen 1969 MGM movie musical, Goodbye Mr. Chips: "Today is mine. What shall I do with it? Throw it away? That's what I do with it, nine times out of 10."

What will this year bring for/to me? I know not. 

Will I rise up out of this? I haven't failed to do so yet. But for the moment, I will remain in this morass. It's warm here.

I am curious to see how I react to this read a year from now as another new year begins.

What shall I do with today? Probably forget about my own problems and try and help someone else.