It’s New Year’s Eve and from the bathroom, downstairs I hear a cheer.

I missed the ball dropping on New Year’s Eve because I was in the bathroom.
Nothing epic, I just had to go.
Embarrassed, I head downstairs, kiss my husband anyway.

Five minutes later, the power goes out.
We say goodnight to our guests by candlelight.

And all I can think to myself is “2013, don’t you dare.”

Because 2013 has the potential to be a big fat whopper of a year,
either a great one or an awful one.

And this has left me really blue for the past few days.

So in case your new year hasn’t started off
with birds chirping all around you either, this is for you.

Originally I wrote three chipper tips –

1. Focus on your belly button. Clarissa taught me this, it’s hard to worry when you’re thinking of your belly button. Very grounding.

2. Do a teeny tiny tangible task. I unpacked a suitcase. Yay, me.

3. Give someone your full attention. Solving a problem with a client, doing multiplication flashcards with my son, petting the dog, all help.

But if chipper doesn’t cut it, and sometimes it doesn’t, there’s always this:

Build a little birdhouse in your soul.

Feather your nest.
Pour your tea.
Declare some time in all that flying around
where you can stop and say,
darn, is it ever hard to be a bird in the winter.

Just hang out in that safe little spot,
where the wind isn’t whipping around you,
and fill yourself up on comfort and quiet.

You have my permission
to declare that the new year really begins at the end of January.
Plenty of time to finish off your lingering 2012 so you can enjoy the New New year.

And of course, to be cheered up by this
wonderful weird and strangely uplifting old song from They Might Be Giants.