It’s New Year’s Day, so I took my headphones and my Pandora for a walk. Pandora offered a special station based on the artist Lewis Capaldi’s songs. Capaldi is a crooner, but he sings a lot about grief and loss. I am not sure what I was thinking – seems like NY day would be better suited to hopeful, uplifting “we’re gonna do it this year!” songs. Alas. And it was raining, too.
Now, reader, I want to mention that today is not the first day I’ve gone out walking and I didn’t start a NY resolution just today. Actually, I’ve been hanging out fairly regularly with Pandora, headphones, and a brand spanking new Garmin I got in November. Garmin is annoyingly persistent in reminding me to exercise. It’s like a digital dog. Get up and go.
So, back to today and the grey expanse of California sky. Capaldi launched into a screech of “How do I say goodbye?” and although I wanted to be optimistic, the song is a sobering and sad ode to a dead father.
How do we say goodbye? Sometimes we don’t have a chance. Sometimes it’s extended by illness and the goodbye is the relieved feeling at the end of the journey. Sometimes we say goodbye to the living because our lives have changed and we’re no longer in each other’s lives. For good or bad. Or just, for better.
So after thinking about dead people, real and metaphorical, I journeyed on to an internal philosophy discussion. Out of every ending, a beginning emerges. There is life before the ending, and there is life after. There is the person I was then and the person I am now. Did I choose the change? Sometimes I have. And many times I haven’t.
If you’ve ever had or seen a tarot card reading, the reader will tell you the Death Card is a sign of significant change. It does not mean literal death (although the fatalists among us like to marinate on the thought of death), it signifies a major change. An ending. Which leads to a beginning.
Musing further, I note that 2025 was full of death and endings, for me, for others. I changed jobs. I shifted my normal life for a time to support my children. I watched the murder of a public figure. Things ended. And life has changed.
Anyone who has experienced a significant trauma (and if you’re of a certain age we all have experienced such things) will tell you that life before and life after are very different. The beginning of something is not always by our own choice. But it comes.
Like a New Year. It comes, whether we are here or not. So, it’s here. This beginning. If the only thing it does is remind you that there are beginnings, then it is good. Beginnings can be the start of something beautiful. There’s light after rain and fog and sometimes there’s even a rainbow. And you can always change the channel on your internal soundtrack.
As Louise Hay used to say, “it’s only a thought and a thought can be changed.”
Happy New Year. May it be better than you expect.
The Bear View 
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