I stood at my living room window and watched the New Year's Eve fireworks displays across the city, thousands of taxpayer dollars exploding in brilliant colours, wondering, did all those families at the food banks, or the homeless shivering in the streets enjoy them? Do we, as a society, even have priorities?

Serious-faced announcers call for donations from the populace. Clothing, food, toys for children – a helping hand for those living on the streets, and then switch to reporting the financial profits of insurance companies and banks, concerned over quarterly returns that might have fallen a few million over the previous billions.

Dreams sinking as the news drones on

Living in a world of Monty Python

The cream expected to rise to the top is sour

Only making things worse by the hour

It's the second week of the New Year already

New hopes and plans, making people heady

Trying to keep steady, holding the line

Praying wishfully everything will be fine

I shut out the lights, got ready for bed, and lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about my life. Was the fact that we raised a family together that today is safe, secure, and sufficient, a product of smart choices or plain blind luck? No answers were forthcoming. I spent a few moments offering sweet words to my wife - the one choice that made it all worthwhile, and then closed my eyes.

Tomorrow would be another day on a totally confusing, amazing, and completely unpredictable journey.