A couple winters ago, I was listening to the scores written by Murray Gold for the Doctor Who regeneration specials. And it made me think, like DW always does.
"Infinite Potential" is played at least twice in Series 7; when Clara and the Eleventh Doctor face down a sort of memory parasite on Akhaten, and then again when the Doctor regenerates.
"Four Knocks," is played in both The End of Time: Part 2 (the Tenth Doctor's regeneration episode) and The Time of The Doctor (Eleven's). When it was heard again in TTOTD it became, at least for me, a leitmotif for the Doctor's pained but unconditional resolve to put others first and for his acceptance that there are some things he can't, and perhaps shouldn't, try to outrun. (Have a listen, if you like.)
Anyway, as I was listening, it struck me that going into the New Year is a bit like regenerating.
Like the New Year, regeneration is a moment of gravity; a delineation of the past and the present. But still, there's a bit of continuity between the two. The Doctor is gone, but he lives on. A phoenix rises from the ashes with different feathers, aware of where he's been but not where he will fly next.
The TARDIS allows the Doctor to run away from so many worlds and times and on to others, so this reminder of fixed time and his own inevitability is ironically the point at which the Doctor encounters his most human self.
In the same way, while we can try to escape our reality by throwing ourselves into other stories, we can't really run away from ourselves in the end. So we take a good look at who we are and what's made us this way. And then we redefine or realign ourselves.
Isn't that a bit like what happens when we sit down to write our New Year's resolutions?
While I am sometimes upset that the past has passed, I've found that if you look for the good, you'll find it. And occasionally, even if you don't look for it, it'll grow on you anyway. A bit like Matt Smith after my precious David Tennant left the show. Endings are a given, but so are beginnings.
Even if—especially if—the bad parts of your past and this year seem like a stormy forecast of the time to come, remember that you are made up of infinite potential. You are capable and your voice is powerful and there are infinities of choices in every single moment of your life.
(The Eleventh Doctor's last speech before he finishes his regeneration is, of course, much more eloquent in its realization of the lingering effects of the past on the future and the theme of moving forward and it includes "Infinite Potential," so I'll just throw that clip in here real casual-like if you want to watch it because this whole article is a thinly veiled attempt to give you the feels and also I don't know how to make GIFs yet:)
So. The past is dead, but it still lives in you, influencing your choices, no matter which direction you proceed from it. How it'll change the future? Well, that's up to you.
For me? I like the advice I've seen in Doctor Who:
You take a deep breath, you gather your courage, and you take a step and then another at your own pace, knowing that your life is composed of different songs and that, though those songs will end as you move forward, your story continues, and it will continue to be important.
