  in more traditional times, people lived by the cycle of harvest. Planting seasons, rain seasons, cold seasons were the milestones by which we humans navigated the passing of time. Of course, these days semesters and calendars are the primary milestones we mark. So functionally, New Years is a ritual of closure and renewal for us today. As a writer, I inevitably think of years as chapters, today I close the chapter titled 2003 and prepare to begin writing anew on the chapter titled 2004. Personally, New Year's Eve is a celebration of journaling, turned blogging!, because on New Year's Eve, 1992, my aunt Rossanna gave me a late Christmas present, a journal, when my family celebrated the holiday at her condo in Angel Fire, NM. I still remember the sense of purpose and hope with which I began writing as we all watched the torchlit skiers fly down the slopes, and the fireworks bring in 1993. I'd kept many periodic journals as a child, but that was the beginning of my adult literary life in a special way that still continues with this blog today. This morning I got out that old journal and skimmed through the pages. It primarily covers my experience through highschool, even though I filled it in 7 months. It was my sophomore year, the last year I'd spend in highschool, and a time of rapid and constant change, filled with innumerable memories of smalltown adolescence. This first volume of my journaling life is overly focused with my big romance of youth, which was at its peak the day before I began the journal as my mother narrowly managed to show up in time to prevent my first sexual experience (I'm still bitter about that!
) and was cut off dramatically by elevator doors as I said goodbye to my friends and left for a year's study in Germany. Amazingly, I actually ran out of pages at that transitory moment! I remember thinking it such divine irony. The next two journals cover my time in Germany and France, my quick return home for my father's heart surgery, and finally, the crash of my great youth romance with a finely shattered heart (which, incidentally, was still sexually unrequited!).
The year after that is covered in few slim pages as the excitement of college and eventually meeting John took every breath and minute. And so my life proceeds through the day I found out I was pregnant and John and I drove straight to the Bookstop (as it still was back then!
) to learn everything we could as fast as we could, and I also took a few minutes to pick out two beautiful and graceful journals I felt reflected my new adventure into motherhood. The pages between here and there serve as a map crafted in retrospect to cover my journey through life. As I look at them, I'm so pleased with my life! I have to give credit to God, and the universe that God created, because my experiences are too grand, too diverse and directed for anyone to not see a guiding hand in this story. As I write that, a twinge of self consciousness pauses my fingers. I'm always embarrassed to admit my faith here. But I must. I've been so blessed and lived such a fantastic life, I cannot take the chance of being ungrateful. 
