New Year in January has always felt completely wrong to me. It is cold and dark and does not signify the natural beginning of anything. Certainly not a time when one are supposed to reinvent oneself and become a new and better person.
Thankfully, for those of us who need a couple of tries before we get things right, there are more than one New Year. I tend to embrace them all and have my private extra-new-years as the year progresses. It is rather a relief if one only managed to keep ones resolution- the cleanse, exercise plan or, for me, the 8 hours of dedicated Spanish grammar studies daily – just past January 3rd.
When I was at university in Montreal many light years ago, my mother told me that the Romans celebrated their New Year in March, which seemed much more natural and forgiving to me. I will be forever grateful to her for giving me this two month grace period every year.
So, for those of you us who broke all our January resolutions, who missed Chinese New Year on February 10 and Tibetan New Year on February 11, now is our chance to restart our year, again… And please do not panic, should you need a bit more time, you can always restart your year in August, celebrating Ethiopian New Year.