Tick Tick Tick. The year's just about "over". I don't know about you, but I have ambivalent feelings about this concept of Starts and Stops.

Even as a kid, I had them. Clearly, it was an artificial dividing line. I could step outside Monday, and then step outside on Tuesday, and most of the world was basically the same. Its shifts came in small, subtle ways that flowed along easily and without me. Even the "full moon" wasn't "full" any longer than it was "half" or "quarter" or "sliver". Winter didn't slam its foot on Fall, Fall didn't suck the heat out of Summer, Summer didn't demand that Spring growth stop. Nothing simply started and stopped. You could step outside and see that any time you wanted.

Nature told me all things are in a necessary, constant, slow state of change. So... why do we call one day an "End" and one day a "Beginning"?

We certainly don't want to call an End to times in which we are thriving and enjoying. It's those difficult phases. That's why we divvy up The One Big Time; why we try to imagine a dam in the Flow of Things. We need to feel as though we reach an occasional moment allotted for our rest from the pressures of change... always there and sometimes overwhelming.

So be it. I don't mind pretending. I understand it's not true, but I also appreciate the so-called "breather", the "fresh start", the "new year". Call it anything you want. We make it all up anyhow. That's no reason not to enjoy it.