Welcome 2016

For as long as I can remember New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July have been my favorite holidays. These two days are not about gifts and they have not yet become so commercialized that they have lost their meaning…for me they are about family, friends, fireworks, and fun. This year, New Year’s Eve had a different feel, a sort of heaviness, and much more was going through my mind than the normal number of races I am going to complete in the new year, the healthy food I was going to eat, or the amount of exercise I was going to do per week. This year, instead, I relished in the time spent with Scott and his family, the memories shared, the quite night at home watching football and occasionally flipping over to watch the festivities from Time Square. This year was different for a number of reasons, but the main reason being the passing of Scott’s father on Tuesday Dec. 29 and the great sense of loss was very preset for me last night. This morning I woke up with a feeling of emptiness, sadness and not quite ready for the change from 15 to 16. For some reason the change of the year made the realization of death that much more evident to me and I was not ready to succumb to reality. So today I am not planning my race schedule, I am not grocery shopping differently, and when I get to the gym to train is when I get to the gym to train. This year my hope is that I focus on those things that are far more important than a PR, climbing the corporate ladder, the number on the scale, getting a 4.0 in grad school, or how many laps I complete during each training swim. I hope that this time next year I can say I lived 2016 with abandon, less worry and more kindness, less stress and more compassion, less time spent at the office and the gym and more time spent with family and friends. I hope I worship more, travel more, read more, and visit my family more. This year I am not making any resolutions instead I am hoping, hoping that I can live life on my terms. Cheers to 2015 a year that had its share of accomplishments, disappointments, laughter and pain and welcome 2016!