Time Flows Like Water: A Reflection on 2009 and A Thought (Or Three) for 2010

New Year's Day is a day when many people around the world make a promise to themselves to do something virtually impossible ove the course of the next year. Why do we make the same promises over and over when we know we failed last year, and we aren't much stronger this year?

I for one think it is a waste of good brain pwoer and a needless destruction of self-image to make a resolution that you know you will probably not keep.

Instead, I'd like to take a different approach to 2010.

If any of you have bothered to look up my username online, you know that it is Japanese for "water." It's symbolic for me, in many ways.

In Christianity, water is a symbol of new life. It is a symbol of our Baptism, of cleansing.

Without water, we would die, and painfully at that.

On a personal level, water to me symbolizes both power and peace, as well as elegance, strength, and beauty. Water is the rythmic washing of small waves on the beach, the spray that soaks you through while walking along the breakwater to the lighthouse holding the hand of the person you love, a warm bath at the end of a long day soaking away your troubles and stresses. Water is the gentle rain on the window, the insistant lapping at your ankles while you wade in the ocean, a cool and salty world of fish.

Water is also a great divider. It seperates us from one another, in the form of oceans between the continents and even surrounds islands. I think that living on an island now has made me more aware of this...Once you are on Vancouver Island, you never leave (or so the joke goes.) The ocean kicks up in storms and waves, and it can be an instrument of destruction under certain circumstances. Water can destroy homes, it can drown loved ones. Water can be a truly terrible and powerful force when it wants to be.

It's much like the passage of time in that matter. Time ebbs and flows like the small waves on the beach. Time can bring tranquil moments with the ones we love, and then it can seperate us in an instant, either temporarily or forever. Time is God`s way of letting us know that we are human. We are born, we grow up, we get old, and then we die. It is the passsage of time that does this to us...As each year goes by, we are reminded that we are very transitory beings, indeed.

What a year 2009 was. The global economy, swine flu, general chaos on a personal and a global level. Regardless of your policital standpoint I think you can agree with me, it has been on heck of a year as far as the US Election and the whole Iraq thing goes! And in Canada, there has been no end to the trouble, the scandals, the general political unrest. The Olympics have cause controversy, both the Canadian and US elections caused controversy, and the provincial government her in BC is going to bring in a new tax or three even though they ran their whole bloody campaign screaming "NO NEW TAXES" in everybody's ears. I think I want to start my own country! But then that country would come under scandal too, probably. Humans just can't stand to not cause trouble with their government, even if the trouble is over something they brought on themselves.

On a personal level, I've learned a lot this year. I hope everyone else has learned a thing or two about themselves, as well.

A few deep thoughts have occurred to me over the past 12 months. Unfortunately I have forgotten most of them, as I didn't have the good sense to write them down. I've always been terrible at keeping journals. But those that I do remember are good ones, anyway.

For instance, you can tell yoruself forever that you aren't going to let what other people think get to you, but it's probably a lie. If you are human, you are going to care. And when some pregnant bitch and her boyfriend decide to make cow noises at you when you're shopping at the mall with someone, well, it's going to hurt. And denying that fact will make it hurt worse. (December 28, 2009, while shopping with Amy. The end result was that I convinced myself I really was as big as a cow and therefore had no right to be in stores for normal people, despite the fact that I wasn't shopping for myself...because when my size 10 wife needs to buy an X-Large at a certain store, you know they aren't going to have ANYTHING for someone who actually is a touch overweight.)

No matter what, women's clothing will never be the same size in two different stores. At one place, I may fit an X-Large and feel good about myself, at the next place, a 4X may barely go around me and I will feel like a hippopotamus. It is the way of life. Shop at the stores where you fit the "smaller" size, and everything will go well.

Never let you significant other tell your Mommy-in-law that you are going to need a new winter coat soon. It will always end with "Are you warm enough? Hey, you should buy her a new coat! Why won't you do it?" Followed by "But, my coat is fine...It's at least got the rest of this season left in it...I can wait for the Spring Is Coming sale..." I mean, seriously, the thing is still 95% water-proof, and now that I have elbow-length knit gloves, I don't need anything more.

People generally are stupid and annoying, and there are few exceptions to this rule. 90% of the people you will meet on any given day are people you don't mind not seeing ever again, because they are morons. 5% are half-decent, and you will wish you had the opportunity to see them more. Some of this 5% may develop into friends. 3% are your family, friends, and other people you grew up with, unless you moved away from home, in which case you probably have email, phone, or facebook contact with them. They are generally good people, all things considered, after all, why else would you have frequent contact with someone you went to school with 3 years ago or more? The remaining 2% of people are your significant other's family and half of their friends. They are effing saints once you get past their flaws. After all, they put up with you. And with your loved one. And neither one of you are as cool as you think each other to be.

My final reflection is truly personal: I seem to have developed a general dislike of people. Maybe it's because I'm getting old...after all, I just turned 21. I'd like to think that I am more world-wise than I was as a teenager. Maybe it's because people tend to show me their bad sides when we first meet. Or maybe I just attract dumbasses. I was lucky to find a wife as smart as the one I've got.

This coming year will probably not be too different from this last one.

I highly doubt that we will discover a cure for cancer...though it would be nice, and we will get a little closer.

People will still be dissatisfied with their government.

People will still sit at home drunk on election day, only to bitch about the government later.

Mothers with small children will still be kicked of the bus ina bad neighborhood in Victoria because their two year old was crying and, well, being a two year old. Is "NO" such a bad word? Maybe if mommy had said it to you more as a child, you wouldn't be such a damn brat when a baby has a small, temporary meltdown after a long day running errands with mommy. Babies have meltdowns, get over it. When you have you own child, you will understand that...Heck I don't have children yet and I understand that...but then again I was blessed with three younger sisters and I REMEMBER the little two when they had meltdowns. It was loud and annoying...but they always calmed down and became sweet little angels again.

In 2010, children will still drop out of school, people will still be fired for stupid reasons, LGBT people will still kicked out of their homes because they are different, gender variant individuals will still be murdered because ignorant people are afraid of them. In 2010, homeless people will still ask me for change on the street, and I will still be hesitant to give to them because the guy down the block that asked me walked into the liquor store five seconds later. In 2010, fake charities will still scam people while real ones get shut down because they can't afford to help themselves let alone the people they serve. In 2010 thousands upon thousands of children will be KILLED because so-called feminists demand the right to choose what to do with THEIR BODIES while couples dealing with infertility wait for MONTHS or even YEARS for a kid to come up for adoption so that they can LOVE and RAISE a child of their own. In 2010 rapists will still walk the streets preying on women, children, and yes, even MEN because believe it or not, MEN DO GET RAPED and it has nothing to do with sexual orientation because RAPE IS A CRIME OF POWER, NOT SEX. In 2010 there will still be shelters for cisgender, heterosexual females who are victims of domestic abuse, while men, transgender people, and homsexuals are turned away because there is no place for them to go when their spouse or significant other has beaten the living SHIT out of them.

In 2010, people will still be killed because of drunk drivers, accidents will still be caused by idiots who are one the cell or texting while driving, and parents will still let their kids wreck the car three times only to get them a new one and let them back on the road because accidents are a part of growing up.

But despite all this, it will still be a better year than 2009 was.

Because we, like time, ebb and flow. We learn from the experiences that bring us from one day the next and as a society we are growing.

Humans are like water, too. We are beautiful, strong, elegant, and devastating.

We cannot change anyone but oruselves, or so they say. But don't you think that by our own personal change, we can influence society? If just one of us sets off a ripple, do you think it will become a wave by January 1, 2011?

I think so.

Happy New Year.