"An optimist stays up to see the New Year in. A pessimist waits to make sure the old one leaves." - Bill Vaughan

I remember in school being told that the bitter taste buds are found on the back of your tongue. I was told when I take a pill, the best idea is to put it on the front of the tongue, so it tastes sweet.

But it couldn't be located anywhere more appropriate. Bitterness lies in the darkness of all things, steaming and pulsating and spreading, oh so quietly, until you take the pill that reminds you it is still there. It pounces, explodes through your being in the most unexpected moment, burning your throat, reminding you what it is like to be angry.

It can be forced back into the darkness, ignored, but it's always there.

There is something about the New Year that reminds me of these things. Not that it's any different; the sun will rise, pretty much the same, and set, pretty much the same. You'll get up, go to work, drive the same car, locate through the same spiral of streets with the same other perturbed drivers, you'll probably stop at the same light and realize you will be late, the same as you always are. You'll vaguely make resolutions that will eventually be forgotten, in the hustle and bustle that is every day life. The world won't feel any different, in the shining, brilliant light of the New Year... because it's not any different. You'll go home, talk to the same people, go to sleep in the same bed, and wake up and do it all again.

"Change" is the catch-phrase of 2009. And people will spend the year idling away, waiting for the change they waited for through 2008, and then will spend 2010 waiting for it again.

The world isn't going to change. The sun will rise and set, regardless of who hates who, who is president, what war is fought in some far off country with a name no American can correctly pronounce. No one is going to wake up to a shining new day of peace and eloquence, because you can't wait for the world to change to fit your needs.

No matter how many times my health teacher may tell me to stop putting pills in the back of mouth, I never remember to. She couldn't stop me from tasting the bitterness, because I never chose to remember too. Because the bitterness will always be there, and there's nothing I can ever, ever do to change that.

I spent much of 2008 being bitter, thinking of the things that weren't fair, that should have been different, that should never have been at all. I spent 2008 waiting for the world to change to be fair, to not hurt, to wipe away the bitter taste in the back of my throat that I couldn't entirely forget.

But without the bitterness, maybe I would forget the taste of what is sweet.

So for me, 2009 is no longer the year of waiting for the world to change. It is, instead, discovering what can be changed within me, to create around me the world I want to be a part of. I will stop lamenting the ills of the unchanged world, and instead celebrate the power of how I can change myself. And a lot of that is remembering that even through the taste of the bitterest pill, there is sweetness lying somewhere too, patiently, waiting to be remembered.