Magic Jewball

As much as I’d like to do a blogyear wrap-up, my blog is only nine months old. So look for that in March. We’ll just call March to February the blogyear, shall we? Instead, why don’t I just be a little self-centered (it’s my blog and I am omnipotent!) and wrap up my own year. Here’s a confession which many people already know and others have figured out (my readers are smart, S-M-R-T): lots of things went on in my life this year about which I did not write. Many days, it was all I could do to write something innocuous when several bizarre and dramatic and realityshowesque things were happening to me. This was easily the strangest year of my life which isn’t hard as, despite my tales of getting sampled on people’s CD’s and meeting famous people, I consider my life pretty humdrum. Not this year, however. I’m free to tell you this because my drama is now over. Parts of it were really good and parts of it were really bad, just like American Idol.

So about the whole New Year’s thing. Everyone loves New Year’s. I mean, there’s the party aspect but it’s really because if you had a good year, you’re looking forward to more of the same and if you had a bad year, you’re looking forward to a whole new start. I’m not really sure which I had. How do you sum that up? Is it how you finished compared to how you started? Is it an averaging of all the happy and unhappy moments of your year?

I’m going to go ahead and use the criteria that politicians use when they want you to vote for them or against the other guy (I suppose it’s always one of the two or both). That is, am I better off now than I was one year ago? The answer is, yes, I absolutely am. And why is that? Because I’m a different and better person based on my experiences this year. Of course you change every year but the changes aren’t always as obvious as mine are to me this particular year. I’d share what they are but this is far as guts-spilling JBall style gets.

So what made this year so psyche-changing? First off, naturally, is that this year brought me this blog. It’s changed my life in so many fantastic ways and enabled me to do something I’ve dreamed of since I was a child (I think maybe one or two of my readers can testify to this although they are lurkers so don’t look for a comment), that is, entertain people with my writing. Luckily for you, the novels I wrote as a teenager and early twenty-something will not be dragged out for your perusal.

My year was split pretty much into two parts. The first half was spent mourning my mother which in Jewish tradition entails abstaining from parties, movies, live music, TV (although I still watched sports, news, and dramas), and generally not being part of the flow of life. If you’ve been reading since then, you also know that I said special prayers every day, necessitating a trip to synagogue and further curtailing my lifestyle.

Just as that was finishing up, smack at the midpoint of the year, the dramatic things started to happen and they pulled me out of that and yanked me right back into the flow of life. I’m really grateful for that. But beyond that, it changed me as a person in ways I’m just beginning to realize. Perhaps most astoundingly, I inadvertently helped change someone else’s life completely and learned the powerful effect people can have on each other’s lives. Or maybe I learned that from It’s A Wonderful Life

But anyway, just now, as that event was ending, something’s just happened to redirect things once again. Because sometimes when one person leaves your life, another enters or re-enters, just like your life is a play. Since you know I’m a person of faith, you know I’m grateful to the Director for that.

And to you, my much-appreciated audience, I say: it’s been a good year, bring on 2007.

Crowded House – Never Be The Same