Will you embrace the new in a new year?

This holiday season, as we wrap up one year and begin anew, I have had two acute reminders that the only thing we can expect in life is the unexpected.

Sometimes just one moment changes everything…

I had planned (and awaited with excited anticipation) a three-week hot, romantic holiday in Australia with the intention of exploring a new relationship with a great guy whom I’d met earlier in the year in the land down under.

I arrived to find my long-distance beau offering temporary accommodation to his ex-girlfriend who needed a place to stay and whom he couldn’t “put out on the street.” Hmmm. After discussing, and discovering, a rather awkward situation, I realized I had travelled almost 10,000 miles from Winnipeg to Melbourne – on a 45-hour journey due to weather and flight delays – to sleep in the guest room, watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” by myself and go for long walks among the gum trees… alone. (That said, we did go together to a fabulous Muse concert in Melbourne.)

It soon became apparent that the only intimate relationship I was developing was with “Mac,” my shiny, happy laptop that became the Apple of my eye.

Saddled with a few emotional issues, overdue work projects and some kind of an infection, my Aussie guy was not feeling well and was in no state to receive guests – let alone faraway girlfriends. On Day Five, he had an appointment with his doctor; and I had an appointment with Quantas airlines.

My holiday forecast of love in the sun had suddenly changed to cloudy with periods of rain and dark skies. I caught a last-minute flight to see friends in Sydney for a few days of warmth and glad tidings, and from there booked an early flight back on Dec. 24 just in time for a white Christmas in Canada. I was home by midnight on Christmas Eve, and I think saw Santa flying over the Pacific.

No regrets. I’d gone on a relationship reconnaissance mission… and found the information I needed. I got in, I got out and, as my astute friend in Sydney noted, I “fast-tracked” what sometimes takes others years to discover.

Mission accomplished. Relationship aborted. Minor wounds, no serious casualties. Alas, it’s time for a new mission in the new year… and I’m ready to advance.

On a much more serious note, my sister and brother-in-law had an unexpected turn of events yesterday, en route to Winnipeg to leave on a holiday to the U.S. and Fiji. They received a phone call that a close friend and business partner had just died after his plane crashed in a field near their home, about five kilometres from the small town of Boissevain. They called to tell me they were turning around to return home to comfort their friend’s wife (now widow) and his family.