sometimes happiness comes in a package

glove love

AD 2008.9 (two thousand eight point nine)

2009 started very suddenly for me. Just moments ago it was the last day of December and I was making the very important decision of how i should try to etch a mark into the flow of time so that when i look back, i would know where the year began. I knew that people I know would be in prayer, partying away and counting down in front of the TV at home when it happened, but for me, my struggle was between spending that precious hour drunk or sober. I tried to picture myself in different scenarios and how special that would make the moment for me. I ended up concluding that making a moment "special" was something I wasn't good at, but hiding away from the world and summing up the whole of 2008 in a blog entry would be a very good excuse for not doing anything spectacular. But from the way this paragraph starts in the past tense, you must have realized that that wasn't what I ended up doing.

I started the year drunk. In Japanese, "drunk" sounds the same as "good", so I guess it was a good start. With the economic downturn, 2009 is hardly a year anyone would want to spend sober, but it could well turn out to be a year of reality checks. I hope this year asks the right questions - not "what do you need to do to afford this?" but "what is your happiness made of?" If we must do reality checks, let's take it all the way. I wish that this year turns out to be one of enlightenments and discoveries. Maybe getting drink is part of sobering up, and hangovers may come in between, but i wish that heads can clear up and we figure out what we really think or feel. I don't know where the year is heading, but even if it means that we must be poor, let as at least be happy :)