2thousand10

I love new beginnings. Opportunities to have fresh starts and new goals. For these reasons the new year and back to school always excite and recharge me. Except for this year, this year was different.

My husband and I went away for the holidays. We flew off to Sayulita, Mexico and loved every single minute of it. We came home dragging our heels.

We took the red eye and landed in JFK. It was January 1st. It was 20-some degrees and the sun was nowhere to be found. I had the blues, I had them bad and I had no intentions of being in a good mood. I certainly had no intentions of whistling around my house joyfully starting all my new years resolutions.

Finally we had to eat and the fridge was bare. Forced by hunger we left for the not so great outdoors. On the way I counted mockingly all the shades of gray while my camera stayed at my side. There was nothing I could see that was even worth the effort of taking my gloves off.

Ten blocks later I saw it. The broken down, stranded ATM machine that looked as pathetic as I felt. It stopped me in my tracks. I stared at it in awe. Then I noticed that I was smiling. Graffitied, dilapidated, and so old, I wondered if it even dispensed money anymore? Yet there it was shining on, with it's ugly greenish fluorescent gleam, lighting up the steel doors behind it. It was oddly beautiful and hey, it made me smile on a gray day with a bad case of the blues.

I learned at that moment, that even in my worst moods, on the coldest of dreariest nights, if I look around I can find beauty in almost anything and anywhere.

My hope is that 2010 is a year for everyone to be able to find beautiful things that make you smile, even on the blah days.

Happy New Year!