This is the time of year when we are looking for something. Perhaps you were one of the millions with your eyes fixed on a glimmering ball, counting down to the moment it would make its descent into our mortal space and start us off to a new year. Maybe you looked for victory as you cheered on your favorite team in a bowl game. Or, possibly you’re looking toward the Epiphany, to celebrate three Magi who followed a star in search of a newborn babe in a manger.

These last few months have been filled with the sense of expectation – from Thanksgiving to Christmas and now to the New Year, and so it seems only natural that I write this column with a single question in my mind: What are you looking for in 2018?

Some people are looking for a new beginning. They want to lose weight or find that special someone. If you spend five minutes watching TV, you’ll likely see commercials for quick weight loss diet plans and gym memberships that guarantee happy results in 2018. Similarly, online dating sites are waiving fees and promising that there are plenty of matches for those seeking them.

Still others are beginning new business ventures, hopeful that 2018 will bring professional success. Along the busy thoroughfares near my home, shops and restaurants open and close, always with new ones ready to take their place. My friends scour professional networking sites, hoping to leverage their skills and relationships to climb the corporate ladder.

Perhaps your focus is on your family. You want your children or grandchildren to succeed in school and make good life choices.

To be sure, what we look for changes with time and the experiences of living.

Many of these types of things used to be important to me, but they seem to pale in comparison to the weightier things of my life today, like enjoying another year free from having to treat my husband's multiple myeloma.

When I was a young girl, new beginnings were exciting to me. The slates were clean and anything could happen. Possibility was synonymous with potentiality – so much so, in fact, that I always had an expectation that great things were in store for me.

As a young woman in my twenties, I was always looking for the next step – the next chance to accomplish the good things that I believed I was meant to achieve. I sought out opportunities equally, whether brought by fate or chance, and kept my eyes on the prize as I graduated from college and launched my career.

Now in my forties, I don’t have that same sense of unbridled enthusiasm that I had 20 years ago. I wonder if this happens to everyone, or just those of us who have been touched by multiple myeloma or some other life-altering illness. I’m hopeful of the future and I still try to live my life in a positive way, but I am cautiously optimistic; I look to 2018 with my fingers crossed, like a child warding off bad luck.

Globally, we are all looking for solutions to our problems. Hunger, violence, and oppression are facts of life for many people in the world today. Yet amidst the darkness, we see that change is underway, and it brings with it a flicker of hope for a better future.

There are many things to look forward to in the new year. The winter Olympics are coming to South Korea, and a royal wedding is scheduled for May in the United Kingdom. A Silicon Valley start-up is planning to be the first private company to land on the moon, and 2018 will mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

The multiple myeloma landscape is changing too. Very promising findings were presented at scientific conferences last year for several investigational myeloma treatments.

Perhaps 2018 will bring therapies that turn multiple myeloma into an effectively-treated, long-term illness. It might even be the year for a cure.

Still, life is not lived through medical research, headlines, or world events. It’s the time for personal goal setting and expectation. So, what am I looking for in 2018?

I hope that 2018 brings my husband Daniel and me 365 more days together. I hope that we are afforded the luxury of his myeloma staying mostly in the background. I hope that Daniel is able-bodied and healthy, and that we might finally traverse the manor houses of the English country­side and view panoramic vistas from the Scottish Highlands. I aim to live in the moment, and not waste moments in anger or frustration. I pray that we will have the resources we need at the time in which they are needed to do whatever is required of us. I hope that we will be a blessing to others and that we will make a difference where we can. And I pray that I am the best wife, daughter, sister, friend, and person that I can be. I hope that 2018 will not be the year that Daniel starts treatment for his multiple myeloma, and I hope that myeloma patients around the world will see stability or even remission in their disease.

Most of all, I wish us all a healthy, peaceful, and prosperous 2018. Happy New Year.