The unavoidable

Yesterday, at one second before midnight, we were still in 2006.
Today we are in 2007. (A happy and peaceful new year to everyone.)
We were in 2007 as soon as midnight had come and gone.
The twenty four hour clock showed 00:00. The minute, the hour, the day, the week, the month, the whole year was changed in that instant; a whole new beginning.
We measure the passage of time by these finest of lines. These narrowest of divisions, are all that lie between any two seconds or minutes: between any two years, centuries or millennia.
As midnight approached, anyone involved in the New Year anticipations will have found themselves approaching something similar to the far more meaningful edge that awaits us in so many circumstances and situations in our lives.

There is no going back from such an edge. We can shut it from our minds, but arrive it will, and pass, leaving us in a new place from which there is no return. An awaited death; an expected birth; a forthcoming marriage, or an ordination; an election; a new employment; a redundancy; a confession or admission; an arrest, a trial or verdict; a prognosis. Such as these will come and go throughout our lives, and though we may not remain long at such points, we are (however briefly) forced to recognize that such specific points of arrival do exist.
There is much to be thought on at these times; and if not at these times, then about these times: both before and after.
We shall no doubt return here …

… but there is more to the edge than this.