Possible margin comments my 18 year old self might have made if my afternoon were a short story: "Auspicious." "Symbolic." "Important."

Today, New Year's Day, I was washing up some dishes and thinking about the year that passed and the year to come. 2008 had some truly amazing days, hours and moments but it also had some very difficult segments.
In thinking about the year to come, I noticed two of my flowering plants-- neither of which had bloomed in 2008-- were starting 2009 on a pretty hopeful note despite the short, cold, dark days we're now having. Ever the student of literature I couldn't help but see this as a very good sign of things to come for 2009. "My year will blossom! I will flourish!" I smiled inwardly at my instinctive leap toward seeing the objects on my countertop as part of a larger symbolic and metaphoric matrix. Last week, you see, my brother found at my parents' house my copy of The Stone Angel. It was the copy I read in my first semester of university. Earlier this week, he was amusing me by reading out my young marginalia over the phone. No matter how distant the lass who wrote "symbolic" and "important" in green ink in the margins of her novels might seem from the person washing dishes in a different decade and province, it's strangely comforting to see she is still alive, well and ever hopeful.