A New Years Introspection By Gil Maza ~ Old Patrol HQ

December 28, 2028

I’m in a strangely philosophical mood so here goes.

Since I can remember, I have always thought of the time and space between the day after Christmas and the day before New Year’s as a sort of mental, emotional and spiritual “No Man’s Land” or “Neutral Ground” or perhaps a “Twighlight Zone”: a dimensional blank space in time that happens to all of us once a year.

Kinda like an undefined space in the entire calendar where we walk through the passage between the last year and the year to come. The tunnel can be light as the brightest sun or dark as the blackest night.

What are we supposed to do during this transition?

For many of us it is a time of deep introspection and reflection. A chance to take a clear, focused look at our situation, unencumbered by past failures, fears, emotion, and the delusional comforts failure, fear and indifference have afforded us, the immense weight of all our life’s baggage; and accept the raw and painful reality of where we truly stand in life.

We have to admit to ourselves that what we have been doing up until now has not worked for us. It has not brought us peace, joy, satisfaction, success nor a feeling of pride and accomplishment.

We have to forcefully strip away all the blinders and self deceptions and coldly see ourselves for what we truly are. And then, fear and all, boldly step ahead from there and start making distance between our past and our failures towards our future goals, dreams and successes.

These sound like resolutions and we don’t like making resolutions because then we feel like failures when we don’t keep them. Nothing wrong with resolutions except sharing them with the wrong people.

Better to just keep them to yourself and the few solid people who you truly believe want the same things for you perhaps even more than you want them for yourself.

And if you are already achieving your dreams, then this is a time for a refreshing, reaffirmation and renewal of that same fire and passion that got you this far.

Still, for others, this transitional phase between years will pass without notice, and the coming year may simply blend into the rest of their lives; until one day – five, ten or fifteen years from today, we realize that too much time has slipped away and somehow, sincerely unaware of how we got there, we are too old, too tired, too far gone to do anything about it.

I spend decades of my my own life hampered by my own fear, angst, rage, past failures, raw and bleeding emotions, the delusional comforts failure and indifference I spoke of earlier, and the weight of my past baggage, and my stubborn unwillingness to truly look myself in the mirror and face the raw and painful reality of who I really am and where I truly stood in life.

Now? What changed for me? First my faith in Jesus, who used the wife who painfully and sacrificially molded me into the man I am these 40 years, my boys, my daughters, my grandkids and great grandchildren, all gifts from God because I could not have any biologically – and the best job I ever had to forge me.

They force me to face the man in the mirror not just once a year, but every damn day.

I am not where I need to be.

But I will never quit trying.

May God grant all who read this a Happy, healthy, blessed, and prosperous New Year.