Week 16: '69 Pontiac GTO

What better way to welcome the new year than with a toy GTO flying through the snow.

For Daddy's Matchbox, this New Year's Day arrives at a time of actual personal change (as opposed to other New Years where I've tried to force the day as a symbol of change when, well, I just wasn't there).

For these few months since losing my job, combined with the demands of the holidays, I have been a young child at a party at Chuck E. Cheese, overwhelmed by the lights and noise and people and options, unable to process the chaos and finding it both exhilarating and vaguely uncomfortable.

 Like that child, I have been able to see opportunities, but have also let in a type of panic of not knowing where to focus in fear of missing the next ultimate game, darting here then there in a panic which every once in awhile ended up with the internal adult version of an external childhood whaa! whaa! meltdown.

I have attended webinars on advanced educational technology, worked on previously shelved writing projects, both fiction and nonfiction, and have learned new software programs, all the while exploring what I do next to pay the bills. I have spent more time with my children, attending events I would have missed had I been working. I have wrestled with major emotional ups and downs as I reexamined who I am and what is important, coughing up fits of grumpy, irritated, and sullenness like a cat coughing up hairballs -- not pretty.

I have more than once sat in the dark at 1:30 in the morning staring at nothing.

I've discussed with, argued with, and become angered by friends and family. I have at times been overly sensitive and at other times been the opposite (underly sensitive?), and I suspect some of the times have overlapped.

And I have finally begun to understand the difference between taking care of yourself and being selfish.

This New Year's, that overwhelmed feeling and panic of missing out I described above is dissipating as I begin to look at life more in the light of healthy living and service, and I am grateful for this gift.  I feel blessed for what I have and what I am beginning to understand, and I am appreciative of the help and kindness and life I have experienced and continue to experience. And while I don't enjoy conflict, (no, I mean I really, really don't enjoy conflict), I am even thankful for the insight I have gained as a result of my conflicts.

Happy New Years from myself and my family to you and the people you care about. 

I won't spell out why I selected that awesome, awesome car above, but suffice it to say my internal symbolism of a yellow '69 Pontiac GTO racing through the snow is something that is pretty darn good.

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The incredible pic of my Matchbox GTO courtesy of Phil Pekarcik. Readers, know that the final picture is even cleaner than an earlier version sent by Phil, even if these tired eyes couldn't spot the upgrades! 

The '69 Pontiac GTO of part of the Muscle Mania 2010 Hot Wheels lineup.