This is the first New Year’s Day I haven’t had a hangover in, well, I just don’t know. It’s kind of a nice feeling.

Last night was a quiet dinner in a Yorkville Chinese restaurant (delicious) and a movie – Black Swan (I was totally blown away. Natalie Portman was unbelievable and the story was spectacularly dark.) We toasted the New Year quietly, at home, missing a third of ourselves and feeling more than a little wistful. My life is getting back on track, and I am grateful.

Today I slept soundly until 11 am, which is unlike me. We got ourselves up and went for brunch with some friends, and then returned home for some household busy work and some reading and writing. Getting my drink on just a little today, with nowhere to go and snug in my pajamas. I’ve taken a break from the Caesars and am transitioning into evening with Kir Royale.

I’m thinking about the freedom and strength I felt in Paris. My little vacation felt like a lifetime ago. The start of my life’s great love also felt like Paris. Bold, beautiful, true to my soul, and exciting. Anything was possible. I want this feeling for 2011. I don’t want to feel afraid and unclear. That part is over. It’s time to settle into something deeper, truer, richer than ever before. Richer than we’d even imagined.

I’ve been working at a list of things to focus on for this year. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Stability and a deeper understanding of the love I have.

Improved communication skills.

A deeper understanding of what security means to me, and how I have the power to build it.

Stronger, deeper relationships with the people who are most important.

Greater physical health and strength.

A meditation practice.

A deeper understanding of my own emotional responses.

A greater exploration of my writing. I think I’ll start a daily writing practice.

Diminished need for approval.

A daily practice articulating gratitude.

Learning to sit with difficult emotion and understanding it deeply before expressing it.

Deeper focus on the positive.

A greater demonstration of the love I feel.

Increased creative time with my little girls.

Deeper trust.

More reading.

A driver’s license.

Things I have learned in 2010:

• The love in my life makes me glow when it is harmonious (everyone said so, and I’ve never heard this so consistently.
• The work that I have accomplished this year has been some of my best, and it was all for my family and I.
• You can love people who aren’t blood like your family. Sometimes even more so.
• Faith is inside me, not in the clouds.
• Relationships are hard, my relationship to myself is harder.
• Family is everything. Having a family of my own is one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever known.
• Anger and fear have a powerful grip, and will choke out all that is good and true if they are granted enough opportunity.
• Trust cannot be taken away. There are people in life who will make choices that hurt you, but they can’t take parts away from you unless you give them away.
• Sticking through difficulty and pain will reveal more truth than running away.
• Books keep me sane.
• Writing continues to save me.
• My heart knows. Nobody else has to approve this.
• I am poised to have everything I’ve ever wanted, but my soul needs to be ready to embrace this reality.
• I have really amazing friends.
• I have filled my world with inspiration, and can find it everywhere.
• I am a good parent and have the makings of a really, really great parent.
• I want, and deserve, an abundance of love.
• When love gets scary, don’t run away. Love bigger and harder.
• I am strong. Inside and outside.
• I don’t need a dog in my life, but I’m a calmer, more sane person with one.
• I could do a lot better at many things than I have done this year. Love is at the top of that list.
• I ultimately need to be self-employed. Forever.
• I am not nearly as self-aware as I thought I was.
• There are ways of communicating that have nothing to do with words.
• It is impossible to please everyone. I ought to only aim to please the people who love me the best, which includes me.
• Children are more rewarding than dogs.
• Hurting the people you love most hurts more than anything I’ve lived through thus far.
• My brain can conjure truths more terrible than anything I’ll ever have to live through again. I have to remind myself this on a daily basis.
• My body, though mysterious, isn’t in as bad shape as I’d feared. I think time will tell what it is actually capable of, and a healed up heart will go a long way towards a healthy vessel to do great things with.
• I am a writer first, a performer second, and an entrepreneur third.
• Writing fiction is scarier than accepting love.
• Independence is power, and I need more of that power.

Thank you Universe for a complex, painful, joyful, terrifying, laughter-filled, inspiring, shining year. Every day is a gift, and I’m ready for 2011. Thank you to each of you who have loved me, and particularly to those of you who have loved me even when you weren’t exactly sure why you should.

Happy New Year!

xo

Schnoo

I want to live,
I want to give
I’ve been a miner
for a heart of gold.
It’s these expressions
I never give
That keep me searching
for a heart of gold
And I’m getting old.
Keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I’m getting old.

I’ve been to Hollywood
I’ve been to Redwood
I crossed the ocean
for a heart of gold
I’ve been in my mind,
it’s such a fine line
That keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I’m getting old.
Keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I’m getting old.

Keep me searching
for a heart of gold
You keep me searching
for a heart of gold
And I’m growing old.
I’ve been a miner
for a heart of gold.

– Neil Young

I believe it was Heavy D who said “Now that we’ve found love, what are we going to do with it?”

Nothing feels right and every possible avenue and scenario is fraught with complication, and as I continue to watch the days unfold all I can think in my heart is that we are here, together. We are meant to be here together. But how do we do it?

Like blind pilgrims we went in search of love in the most unlikely places, with only faith in the intensity of our emotion and the strength of our connection to guide us on our path. Despite the warnings. Despite convention.

And there is so much love here. So much.

My fears of being a liar, of not being enough, of not belonging, of not walking my true path have led to a path that is so winding and twisted that all light has vanished from my sight and I feel, quite simply, lost.

If I had a wish for Christmas it would be to banish all the pain, open our hearts to truth, and work together with love and open hearts to find healing.

I saw this today and it made me weep:

Kahlil Gibran on Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.