What Does New Years Mean For You This Year?

New Years has come again. It's time to say goodbye to another year, and look towards the next one. It's also the time of year when people begin thinking about making New Year's resolutions. Some people believe in this more than others. It is about setting goals for yourself in the new year; things that you would do differently. Will you make New Year's resolutions?


The most common New Year's resolutions include losing weight, exercising, or being healthier, or maybe striving to get a promotion at work, or starting a family. All in all, the new year can mean new changes in life. Changes you want to make, or maybe even changes that were supposed to happen, or that you made happen.

Normally New Years doesn't phase me. I never make plans, and for me it's always been just another day. But this year is different. On the way home from work two weeks ago, before my holiday vacation began, I lay on the train and stared out the window, listening to my iPod. I watched as the buildings of the city slowly faded away as the train drove west. I began to think of everything from the year. Ironically, I was listening to Tommy Lee's "Say Goodbye". Flashbacks, pictures, and memories flashed through  my head...like a screenplay. I began to think. The end of 2012 was quickly approaching. It was at that point that I realized that, for me personally, New Years this year is about saying goodbye. I've had to say goodbye to many people and many things. Some included close, personal relationships; an old family member that had passed on, as well as a significant piece of my childhood; several professional relationships; a marriage; and just an angry and unhappy "me" that is now gone...and that I won't miss.

As I wrote in a previous article, 2012 was the year of difficult decisions. I had to make several difficult, life-changing decisions. The decisions I made this year have and will no doubt affect the rest of my life. While a large part of me is nervous for these changes, as I always worry about making the right decisions, I'm also excited for the new paths and opportunities that may come my way in 2013. New Years definitely brings about changes in life.

I'm thankful for the opportunities that have come my way, some of which I have accepted, and others that I chose to pass up. I've had the privilege of meeting and working with some of the most fantastic people I've ever met. I'm truly thankful for those that I've met and for those that have entered and left footprints on my heart this year. Some have even re-entered my life and have enriched it even more. For those I'm also eternally grateful. I wish all those the best of luck and success in 2013.

In less than 24 hours, a new year will be upon us. Will I make New Year's resolutions? I think so. Mine include taking care of myself both physically and mentally, meeting certain professional, personal, and educational goals, and just being a happier and healthier person...which was definitely something I took for granted before.

So what about you? What have you or will you say goodbye to? What does the New Year mean for you? For some the new year may just be another year, or that tomorrow morning will be just another day. While this may be true, my advice to you is to do one thing different tomorrow. This could be not eating something you would normally eat, helping someone, complimenting another, or doing something different for yourself. You'd be surprised how minimal changes such as these can become contagious, and can start your new year off right. Happy New Year.




 © Carolyn Seelen | Dreamstime.com

 © 2010, 2011, 2012 Content written and owned by J.H. Language Solutions. Usage by written permission only.

My Grandmother's House

It's amazing how much sights and smells can remind you of a certain time in your life...almost instantly.

Yesterday my brother and I went to visit my vacant grandmother's house. It's been empty for about nine months now. My grandfather passed away in February 2003, and my grandmother has been alone since. In that time, she cared for my two cousins until they grew up, and her sister, until she also passed away.

My grandmother was always a nurturer. She spent her life caring for my grandfather, her two boys, her grandchildren, and sick family members.  Unfortunately, the time has come when she can no longer live on her own. After being diagnosed with and treated for skin cancer and a series of accidents, she now lives with my aunt and uncle, the gracious people that they are, where she will most likely stay until her time comes. Since then, all of us have taken turns visiting the house, cleaning things out, and feeding her cat until he was found another home.

While my brother and I were there yesterday, it just amazes me how surreal it still is. The quaint little Cape used to be full of knick-knacks, old-fashioned furniture and quilts, and always the smell of something delicious cooking in the oven. Now there are only remnants of boxes, old musty photo albums, dispersed chairs and furniture that will most likely be donated, dust bunnies, and some old, cheap Christmas decorations. The smell of home cooked meals and love have faded away with time and loneliness and were replaced with a stale, musty scent with just a hint of an old woman's tears.

Every sound, every smell instantly brought me back to my childhood. The sound the storm door makes when you open it, the creak of the floor boards as you step into the kitchen, the smell of the home itself that hasn't faded in thirty years. It was like just yesterday my brother and I were there on summer vacations, coloring on the porch floor, sipping ice cream floats in the backyard grass, and drawing in the driveway with sidewalk chalk. It just amazes me how fast the time goes...and how quickly the little, quaint, three-bedroom house with the little red, wooden tulips that sit in the windows have become white...faded from years on sunlight. Faded over time.

A very large part of me felt sad. I missed it. It just amazes me how fast the time goes...and how quickly the little house, that was once filled with life and family, became abandoned, lonely, and sad. We spend some much time of our childhood waiting to get older. Then when we get older and become adults, we wonder how quickly everything slipped through our fingers. It almost doesn't seem fair.

As my brother and I pawed through items...old dishes, tools, my grandmother's ceramics that we remember, and haven't moved from their homes on the wooden carved shelves in thirty years. My grandfather's tool bench in the basement sill has his handwriting on the walls, there were old, rusty, nickel keys that belonged to cars that have been gone for at least twenty years. There were old toys that were right where we left them...which seemed like just yesterday.

As we wandered in the backyard, we couldn't believe how small it seemed. When we would run out the back door and into the yard, it seemed so much bigger to us then. It seemed like we ran from miles from the back of the house all the way to the fence. The backyard used to be overflowing with flowers, plants, vegetables, and huge sunflowers that seemed tall enough to kiss the sun, and a large garden that my uncle used to care for. Walking in that garden seemed to go on forever. It was like a dense jungle that you could easily get lost in. I remember walking through that garden, holding onto my uncle's rear end pocket, afraid yet mesmerized.

Now the backyard seems empty and lonely. My grandmother's clothesline is overrun with grape vines and ivy, and are old and full of moss. It seems like a lifetime since they've seen and held clothes. All that remains is one, single maple tree. A young tree that symbolizes the birth of new life that the house would see again one day.

It was weird to think that none of us would be coming back here to live or visit again. My grandmother's days for caring for others are gone. And while the home is still filled with spirits of my grandparents, and my father and uncle, my brother and I and our cousins, it's also filled with the ghosts of what seems like lifetimes past. Regardless of where I go or where I end up, it will always and forever be my grandmother's house.



Cover image:

SUNFLOWER
© Dan Tataru | Dreamstime.com

© Content written and owned by J.H. Language Solutions. Usage by written permission only.

Music and Memories

I remember music. Music was such a vivid and important part of my life. A part that no matter how old I get, I will never forget.

I remember music. I was in fourth grade and learning to play the recorder. I instantly realized it was an innate skill. My music teacher at the time, I hope she forgives me for not remembering her name, brought instruments to the class. REAL instruments. One instrument she brought in and played was the clarinet. I instantly associated that with the recorder and thought I want to play that. 

It all began when I was fifth grade. There I was, ten years old at a demonstration one evening after school where students and parents could sign their kids to begin instrument lessons. REAL music lessons. I already knew I wanted to play the clarinet. And then it all started. ALL of it. My musical journey. Years of music lessons, private and group, concerts, solos, competitions, traveling, uniforms, graduations, parades, jazz ensembles, choral ensembles, basketball games, football games, music store emergency runs, student conducting, school projects. I incorporated everything into music. Even into other course projects that had nothing to do with it...somehow I found a way to tie the two together. By the time I was in high school, I really divulged into it and gave it everything I had. It was the only thing that mattered. It was my only love. I remember music.


It continued after high school into college. College is when it became more serious; and it was time to decide whether I wanted music as a career or not. After much work, thinking, deliberation, arguments with my parents, and more thinking, I decided that it would not be a career choice of mine, but it would always remain a hobby. A hobby that I would always love and a time in my life that I would NEVER forget. Forever.

After graduating from college, I moved out of my parent's house and into my first apartment, found my first full time job, went back to school for my Masters, and began a new relationship, whom later became my husband, all within a year. I was loving life...but something was missing. About a year or two later, I was recruited by the Worcester Chorus. I sang with them professionally for about two years. However, in those two years, I got married, I started working in Boston full time, and even started my own business. It became extremely difficult to attend regular rehearsals while commuting 40 miles away by train. I finished out the 2010 season, but I didn't return after the summer like I had in previous years. Life just always seemed to get in the way.

Two years later this weekend, my stepdaughter, who is nine years old and is a HUGE fan of the Beatles, which I only have my husband to thank, asked over and over if I could play "When I'm 64" on the clarinet for her. In high school, we religiously played rock 'n' roll music in addition to the classics. My music teacher was also a huge fan of the Beatles, and pretty much anything worth the title of "classic rock". We were always playing and singing the Beatles' music. It was one of the memories I hold so dear.

After some back and forth, with her and in my own mind, I decided to do it for her. I tried excuses such as, "I don't know where my music is" or "I forget how to play." But nothing worked on her. After the pleading and one look into that sweet nine-year old's blue eyes, I was upstairs in my office, dusting off my clarinet case. My husband went down into our basement and dug out three black binders full of old sheet music. I peeled through pages upon pages of music. Some of them were turning yellow; they smelled of must, stale air, and dust. Some of the pages were stuck together from years of humidity and storage. I turned every page and read every title. Every page I turned was like I was turning back a year in time. I read through each scribbled note on the top of each page from whomever I shared my music stand with. Some of the notes were meaningless. Some of them I remember like they were yesterday.

The sight of my clarinet broke my heart. I had only one reed left in my box. All the other broken cases empty from years and concerts past. The once bright, shiny, silver keys were old and tarnished. The cork between each piece broken. All the while, I could feel my stepdaughter studying me as I slowly put the pieces together, adjusting the mouthpiece carefully. I tried my damnedest not to cry. I was surprised at how quickly my fingers found their positions over the keys, like they had so easily every day for fifteen years. It was like ten years had not passed in between. Although struggling at first, I was able to remember the fingerings and play the song. My stepdaughter happily danced and sang in her pajamas through our living room. Although it wasn't exactly what I remembered, and God knows I don't have the skills I once did, it was the best concert I've performed in a long time.

I realize this weekend was about Memorial Day. Thanking and remembering those who have fought and poured their hearts and souls into our freedom. Although today in 2012, I think we all can agree that our amount of freedom in this country is questionable at best, it doesn't change the fact that there were men and women who have literally put forth their lives for this country and our freedom. One of those men was my grandfather, Rudolph J. Gniadek. He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. He was married to my grandmother for over 40 years and raised two boys, Jeffrey, my father, and my uncle, David. He had four grandchildren, myself being his only granddaughter. And he was damn proud of all of it.

Looking back and remembering, I don't look into my past without seeing him. He was one of my biggest supporters and believers next to my father. He was always there, for all of us. Every step of the way.

That's what this weekend is about, isn't it, remembering? And that's what this weekend was about. Remembering. You can remember certain memories of your own, those who have passed on that were dear to you, those who have served for this country, or those who have served for your family. Regardless of who or what you remember, as long as you take the time to remember.

Happy Memorial Day.