Hi. Remember me?
I spent the last couple of weeks enjoying Christmas and New Years with the family. It was wonderful and crazy and definitely worthy of it’s own post and picture share (coming soon!) But now I’m ready to kick off the New Year and get back into the swing of normal life.
I love the New Year. I love new things. I was that kid who loved the first day of school because she had a fresh, new, unwritten-in notebook. That notebook presented so much promise and opportunity. I am the same way about my paper planner. (Yes I still use a paper planner – major plug for Erin Condren who caters to women like me who can’t quite join the technological age when it comes to scheduling life.) The whole year lays before me, in crisp new pages, ready to be filled and experienced. How exciting!
At the end of the year that calendar will hold a year of my life. Both the wonderful and extraordinary moments as well as the mundane and sometimes challenging ones. But not today. Today the calendar is a blank slate upon which I get to chart the coming year.
The New Year also brings up conversations about resolutions and new starts. I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple of days thinking about this past year. There is a lot to be proud of and celebrate. Big moments like finishing the Susan G. Komen 3- Day and raising $5000 towards a cure for Breast Cancer, a new job and a wonderfully long vacation with my family. There were also smaller, more intimate, less visible milestones. 2012 brought me some peace. My heart felt full for the first time since mom died. You know, the kind of full where it feels like it could lift right out of your chest! I missed that feeling. I also remember the day that I realized that I saw the World in color again. That may sound dramatic but truly it was like the sunshine finally broke through.
2012 was truly a year or healing for me. I’ll carry the loss of my mom and grief with me for the rest of my life but 2012 was the year that I realized I don’t have to define myself by that.
Looking back I also see something that weighed me down all year. That caused me pain and held me back. Envy and jealousy. I have compared my life to just about everyone around me since the day I lost my mom. And when I hold my life up against other’s I’ve only been able to see where my life is lacking. What I don’t have. How much harder things are for me. It’s been a damn sad pity party up in this hood. I don’t like how I feel when I do this and I don’t like how I view others when I do this. I’ve tried hard not to bring this dark place forward in my interactions but I just know it has affected me in more ways than I realize.
So it is with this awareness of what is holding me back that I want to build on the foundation of healing 2012 brought and move beyond the jealousy and the envy. My resolution for 2013 is to EMBRACE.
Simple. Embrace.
I recently read another woman’s take on resolutions. She refuses to make a list of things she wants to accomplish or goals she wants to achieve as these are things that she could either put a check mark next to or declare a failure at the end of the year. Instead she likes to pick a word for the year and use that as her guiding star, her compass. I liked that a lot. Which is why my resolution is simple. One word. Embrace.
This year I want to embrace MY life. I want to move forward with optimism and love and hope. I want to be grateful for the blessings I do have (because there are many). I want to take hold of my goals and desires and go for it without self doubt. When life gets hard I want to embrace the challenge and find the grace in those hard times. 2013 is going to be a year of constantly adjusting my perspective. And so I’m going to set that resolution, that one word as my guide post for the year and embrace the journey ahead – whatever it may bring.
May 2013 bring you peace and happiness and wonder!
