Out With The Old and in With the New!!!

It is new years eve once again. In my life time I have never went out anywhere on New Year's Eve. I don't know why exactly but I have always stayed home and either watched the ball drop on TV or sometimes fell asleep before the new year got here. It has always been a pretty "boring" night for me. I spend it usually with family and that is fine with me. But, this year one family member won't be here. My mom won't be here this New Year's Eve nor will she be here tomorrow on New Year's day. She's in the hospital. We thought that she would be back tomorrow but things didn't go as planned as usual and she won't be back for a while. We aren't sure what the exact plan is but we know that we won't be toasting the new year together this year. 

Our family tradition on New Years day is to eat black eyed peas for good luck. Although, sometimes my grandmother would make gumbo and we would have that but usually it was black eye peas. I thought of making them this year but without my mom being here it won't be the same. So, I will wait until she is back and we will continue the tradition then. I will miss her not being here and miss her not so subtle criticism of my black eye peas. I always know what she is going to say before she says it because she always says I never put enough of this or that in the peas and we just laugh about it later. So, I will miss her voice, her presence and they way she will look at the people on TV and talk aloud and say that enough with New Year's Eve already. She doesn't think that it is a big deal. And she is right it really isn't in a way. After all it is just another day on the calendar. I will visit her tomorrow in the hospital and tell her to hurry up and get well so she can come and eat some of my black eye peas I have waiting for her at home. That should get a good belly laugh out of her. 

So, at this year ends I am hoping that next year will bring my mom better health and we don't have any more hospital visits, emergency room visits and no more health scares for anyone. I just want a boring year for her, meaning she is healthy as she can get. Then I am hoping that some good things happen for all of us. No matter how large or small just good things, more good then bad. I want to just breathe in the coming year something I didn't do a lot of this year. Just sit and breathe and know that everything is going to be alright.