The two-faced god

With this post, my blog archives officially burgeons to include a whopping total of four months. And with 2005 dawning, this seems a suitable time to reflect on what the twelve preceding months have brought me. Which rough edges have been smoothed, and which have thwarted the sandpaper of my collected life's experiences (much like my father's 18-year-old cat who hangs on just to be cantankerous and yowl at me over the phone)?

I wish I had deep and insightful answers to give you. I wish I could report that I am the same bouncy, enthusiastic girl who comprised one-sixth of the "sunshine suite" and had nothing against busting a move on the tables in the caf. Or the confident, overbooked seminarian who thought it sounded like fun to trade skills with a friend, learning to cook spicy Indian in exchange for teaching ancient Greek. Or even the hopelessly shy but determined foreigner testing the waters of the German language and educational system and finding, to her surprise, that she swims.

But that is not the Jess that I am in 2005. Somehow I am a composite of those girls, and something more, and something less. I am a whirlwind of competing emotions. I am confidence and uncertitude, laughter and melancholy, pluck and pusillanimity. Certainly there are things I'd like to change this year, things I'd like to learn or give up or think more about or think less about. But in the chaos that is my mind and heart right now, I can't chart a course...I don't know if I'm coming or going. Apropos in the month of Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings, the gatekeeper of civilization and adulthood.

But here's one New Year's resolution amidst the cacophony: I will take up knitting, and complete the scarf phase before moving on to socks, sweaters and blankets. I figure, why not.