Gut Unclenched

The phrase "Happy New Year" can make my gut clench with a pang not grotesquely unlike when I'm hiking a high ravine...and the dropoff to certain death is just one pee-wrenching sneeze away. Not so my reaction to "Merry Christmas" or even to its somewhat-snobby counterpart, "Happy" Christmas, from across the pond. Somehow, those sentiments expressed outside the shopping mall, in line at the bank, or read dozens of time across Facebook dump me in a shade of bliss, prompt more of a "Yes! Yes, I think it shall be!" reaction, rendered (at least in my mind) with a crisp and pert British accent.

But that pesky "Happy New Year!" Yeeeee-ah, that one prompts some inner-hives. Again with the gut-clench thing. How come? 

Oh, I think it's because the new year is the opposite, really, of the one-day-express Christmas wish. One day I figure I can handle. Despite the horrendous one-days my life has spouted so far, I find myself convinced that such a day will be peaceful. Sentimental. Celebratory.

But a spread of 365? All together? Plated into segments of unpredictable 24 hour servings rarely, if ever published, on a menu with prices?! I mean, come on! At least let me know how much any given day is gonna' cost me! 

Course, that's not how it works. At all. But my clenching gut wishes it were. When I was 20 - meh, not so much. That whole invincibility factor extinguished all fear...and good sense, I might add. At 35, I know better because I've seen more. Lived more. Survived far, far more than even the worst I thought would've happened by 35. 

 Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed...
Mark 6:51

And then I remember: I haven't seen the worst possible. By any stretch. I learned that there are more than few folks out there who totally think I suck. And suck - being one of those key words I rarely use except for when I really, most exceptionally think they apply (like now) - aptly describes. I also realized that there are a few more who think I'm pretty okay...which I'll gladly grab and hang on my heart mantle any day. I discovered that I can be and am, in fact, fitter now than in my 20's - despite new melodies of grinds and pops in the knees and fingers. I accepted that it's okay to say, "Aw, *^&*$#% it!" when the situation fits and, by extension, no longer feel the need to hoard the burdens of others on shoulders never meant to carry them in the first place. 

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”"

Matthew 11:28-30 ESV

Oh, don't mistake my wax rhapsodic as a replacement for the gut clench: it's still there. I suspect it will always reside, the cotton-looped price tag dangling from my antique of experience - a costly and ever-present reminder in any currency I value. Yet, I don't fear the clench. I don't worry it. And, rather like the pain of labor (not coincidentally, I'd imagine), I do not fight against it. It simply washes over me, runs through me, cutting and jibing and taking what it must. 

Because then it will be over. 

The sun of January 1st will set afore the sun of January 2nd rises.

You see, January 2nd is his birthday.

And just about every ounce of hope and promise and glory and goodness mine eyes have seen have been whilst standing sqaurely to the left of this man. 

"And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house.
Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul."
1 Samuel 18:1-3 New King James Version

It is a reminder come a'shouting at a time my heart must hear. 

Suddenly, 365 plates of 24 hour days don't seem too shabby.  

Menu folded.

Prices optional.

Gut unclenched.