Giving Kegs to Monks

I am reading a collection of thoughts by Thomas Merton. At the end of one of his quips, he writes, "I write this in the woodshed, surrounded by the charred, sweet-smelling wood of smashed-up whiskey barrels: not ours, naturally. Kegs given to the monks to break up for firewood."

I found it funny. I wonder who gives kegs to monks; what logic a person would have to find that a good idea.

And I realized its not so foreign really. Sometimes, we —I — do precisely this. I give to others that which is utterly inappropriate.

When I was 16, I learned a piece of wisdom from the OC. The show said that they way you spend you New Year's Eve is the way you will spend your new year.  For that I am worried.

I spend my New Year's feelings out of place at a place that is supposed to feel like home. I spent it critical and judgmental – wishing that I was someplace else, someplace better. I realized that I had changed too much to ever feel at home here anymore.

But, thinking of sweet-smelling whiskey barrels in the hands of an old monk, I realized that I spend my New Year's thinking of me. Thinking about how I was unhappy. I forgot to spend the evening enjoying old friends, remembering a good year — a good decade that had passed us by.

Today is the beginning of a new year. The first decade in which I must be fully an adult. In honor of the New Year, I'm chopping up kegs to turn into firewood. I'm taking my past mistakes and chucking it into the fire to warm and enlighten my new year.

To the past 10 years: thanks for crafting me into someone worthwhile. Thanks for taking me from obnoxious preteen to mean teenager, over-sentimental college student to adult. Thanks for still ticking through no matter what became of me.

To the next 10 years: I'm not ready for you yet, but I'll take you in stride. So, let's get started.