A Harsh, Beautiful Mistress

It is a whole new, beautiful New Year. My favorite month has landed and I am full of joy and possibility drunk with exhaustion.
Heck yes. The very soul of me is screaming for Christmas to be over, and thanks be to the heavens it nearly is! Though the removal of the paper chain hanging over the kitchen window nearly caused world war three in my house today, I can see that the end is in sight: that very, very soon I will be able to undress the house, get all the odds and sods put away that the festivities seems to have littered my little house with, and finally dampen the heckles that a lack of dedicated housekeeping has had rising in my vaguely hysterical soul. Hell’s bells I am dramatic. For hasn’t this been a season stuffed full of wonderful? It has, it has, it has! A Christmas Dinner to die for. So many nights spent with friends and lovely family. A present from my lovely friend Ouissi that I just cannot wait to show you. The willpower not to over-indulge on cinnamony wot-nots. My Finn. A New Year spent in Downturn Shabby, the utterly fabulous murder mystery evening my sister dreamed up, and of course, a sprinkling of the kind of merry little magic, only Father Christmas ever sees fit to stuff in my seamed stockings.

But hot on the heels of magic, reality will always follow.

Reality, a beautiful, but harsh mistress who has me yearning for clear surfaces and empty head space. Not the flights of lovely fantasy that have carried me through the holiday, but a stern look at what is and what is most likely to be. A study of what I can control, and all that I can change and the resolve to recognise all that is completely out of my hands.
I feel naked and raw: fresh and scrubbed clean. All these things and more. The gifts that the first month of a New Year is so very willing to offer those ripe for change. Alongside my resolution not to make resolutions, I am not hanging my hat on any one dream (that way madness lies), but I am instead  ready to pick up a pen and spill my head on to paper: releasing all that is trapped in the jumbled sentences cluttering up my grey matter.
Tonight I will take a bath in something scented with parma violets, float around in a pretty pink kaftan, and then take up my pen. I will write until my hand drops off: planning my latest offerings, plotting a change in personal direction that has every creative bone in my body jangling, and drawing together my own body of work so that I can see myself and all my tomorrows in light of what already exists.
Reality. A harsh, beautiful Mistress accompanying me into a future fueled by independence. I’m excited, but oh dear 2014, I truly wish you could tell me what you will bring…
I’m an impatient Madam, don’t you know?