"Everything is new again," I said. It was the first week of 2006 and I was still wishing everyone a "Happy New Year." One woman wasn't so happy about it. "Then why do I feel like it's the same old thing?" the woman replied. It's a fact for some of us that we can celebrate a new year but still see life as very much the same. We can flip the page on a daily calendar, mark off another 24 hours on a planner or wind the old mantel clock and still see our lives as "the same old thing." The old cliché, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life!" means little to me because I have no idea how long the rest of my life is. Today could also be the last day. Although I understood the attitude of the woman I was visiting I really didn't want to see tomorrow as, "the same old thing." I heard a survivor of one of the recent disasters describe his outlook on the loss of his home and all he possessed as, "Everything is new again." He seemed to have stunned the reporter, too. "You're okay with this?" she asked. "I'm not okay with it, I'm just re-creating my life from scratch and I am grateful that all will be new again," he replied. The camera man panned across the property and there was really nothing left at all. "This is a new day," the man said. "The first day of forever." That caught my attention. I can easily see today as the first day of forever but not the first of the rest of my life. "I love to see the world through the eyes of Winnie the Pooh," I said to the woman. She looked at me over the top of her glasses as if she couldn't believe a grown man would base his views of the world on a children's fictional character. "Winnie the Pooh said, "I used to believe in forever, but forever is too good to be true," I told her. "But it appears to me to be easier to understand than "the rest of my life." We continued our conversation as we shared stories of dreams gone bad and days full of regret. "That's all about yesterday. "Forever" and "until" should be something more important to the both of us. Neither of us know how long we have. I'm guessing you'd rather spend that time living rather than slowly dying.," I told her. She looked around, leaned over a bit so she could see out her window and said, "Winnie the Pooh also said, "If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you." "That is my favorite Winnie quote," I said. "Mine, too," she said smiling. So we sat on the edge of tomorrow and talked about yesterday believing we had all the time in the world. We did because, "Everything is new again and this was "the first day of forever."