As we come to the end of another year, it only seems right to reflect back upon it and contemplate. A debriefing, if you will. What was good, what was bad, what could I have done better, and what can I do better next time? But do I want to write an elegy, or a eulogy?
An elegy, of course, is a mournful and sad poem or song, lamenting the loss or passing of something or someone. Sometimes my year felt like it deserved an elegy. There were a lot of endings. We left our home in Baltimore and said goodbye to a lot of friends. I sang my last show with the Washington Opera Chorus, although I didn’t know it at the time. I had my last good night’s sleep for probably another year or two. We lost my Uncle Gordon. I could definitely write an elegy for 2010.
But I could also write a eulogy. A eulogy is like an elegy, but it’s not a song, it’s a speech or a piece of writing, and it’s not sad. It is written in praise of a person or thing recently deceased or retired. My first son was born in 2010. I got my first opera contract with an “A” house. We relocated back to Vermont, where my wife and I both grew up, and she found a job! Heck, I even started this awesome blog. There is a lot to celebrate.
I thought the question of whether to write an elegy or a eulogy would be answered by my mood at the time of the writing, but today I am feeling medium. I’m a little ambivalent. I feel like I can clearly see both the good and the bad of the past year, but more than anything, I am excited for the new one. I feel like 2010 was a year of figuring out problems, and 2011 will be a year of solving them. I am confident that Simone and I have laid the groundwork in 2010 for the progress we want to make in 2011, and I can’t wait!
So I will write neither an elegy nor a eulogy, but instead will look to the future this evening as the ball drops in Times Square and I kiss my wife, who will probably have passed out from exhaustion by then, due to fussy baby all last night. I will not make resolutions, but goals. I will learn from the past, live in the moment, and plan for the future. And I will have fun. So I say to you all, in every sense of the words, Happy New Year!