Happy New Year

Welcome to the world, 2009.

I admit it: right now, your purity and innocence are quite alluring - and contagious. Like you, I feel myself bubbling with the anticipation of what the future may bring, and I am full of hope and wonder.

Soon, you will bloom with the verdant spring of childhood. I think I'd like to join you in your excitement then: feel like I'm the master of my universe, believe in the endless possibilities of life.

You know, you will continue to grow older, and as you lusciously ripen in golden summer sunshines, I, too, will soak in your warmth and wisdom.

But then, I'm afraid, your lustre will begin to fade with the browning of old age. And from then onwards it will be a slow, but measured, march towards cold, grey, and certain death.

So, I wonder about you 2009. I am weary of not knowing what the future will bring, and I want to link my fate to your seasons because they are changing, but predictable; varied, but immutable. But I fear that I lack your resilience, and may not be able to cope with the birth of fresh hope, and also its death within the same year.

So, perhaps, 2009, we can reach a compromise. Perhaps I will borrow from you your current wide-eyed wonder, and view the world with a fresh perspective. And maybe your spring will bring new hope to me and I will be rejuvenated. And perhaps then I will then be strong enough to walk on my own, and could try to renew this spirit through the blustery autumn and snowy winter of your demise. And then I could join you again next year with greater optimism and cheer? Perhaps. It's a possibility. It's a start.

So, welcome to the world, 2009. I don't doubt that you will bring to me an equal measure of sadness and joy, but I hope you will be a friend to me, and I hope that I can be a good friend to you.