new year’s resolutions

I noticed a lot of resistance to resolutions this year.  & it seems to be a growing trend as I’ve gotten older.

Some people disbelieving that New Years Resolutions are ever followed through.

Some people believing that if they want to change their life, they will do so without waiting for the clock to strike midnight & wipe our slates clean for the new year.

Some people, perhaps, feeling too old to still be believing in the magic or existence of a clean slate. 

All good & valid reasons for resistance.  But I’m seeing a different side to resolutions this year.

I’m no stranger to how days can turn into years with the slight blink of an eye.  I see New Years as the universal acknowledgement of the passing of time.  & I see it as the perfect time to look back at a year of love & laughter, heartbreak & mistakes, sadness & lessons learned.  It is the perfect time to not let time pass you by.  Those of us able to do so without the reminder, all the more power to you.  But for those of us needing the reminder that the clock is ticking, that our lives are passing us by, let this be it. 

At times, I’ve  thought poorly of commercialized holidays like New Years, Valentine’s Day, Halloween, even Thanksgiving & Christmas.  & those thoughts have brewed from the idea that we should live these things every day, not just on this one special day.  But I’ve come to understand that these special days can serve as reminders to us of how we want to be living every day – loving, present, thankful, giving, kid-like.

I’ve always thought that the new year was about starting over, forgetting the past, moving on.  But our pasts follow us.  It’s true.  So perhaps the clean slate refers not to our pasts, but to our futures.  Our pasts cannot be erased or forgotten, but the future can be rewritten at any moment.  & so much resistance to change is that we cannot see anything, but what is currently before us.  We cannot see how or when that change would occur, how or when it would be able to break through the rigid routines we’ve set upon ourselves.  We cannot see a way out.  The year before us is looking eerily like the one we’ve left behind & we’re full of excuses as to how nothing can change, how one little adjustment might bring the whole thing tumbling down.  So the magic of the clean slate lies in wiping out the “shoulds” and the idea that our choices and decisions of this next year have already been chosen for us.

All that to say, here are my 2012 New Years Resolutions:

(1) Get married!  …I’ve been called on this, saying that I can’t really count this one as it has been in the works for last year, but hey, I’m excited!  Biggest event of my life, right there.  & there’s still a lot of work left to be done in order to pull it off so it’s #1 in my book.

(2) Up my intensity at the gym.  …I’ve got the consistency down.  But let’s just say that some of the days I’ve gone have been more for show than actual progress.  My initial goal was to just get there.  But now that I’m doing that, I’ve decided I need to push myself just a little harder.  Enter….R.I.P.P.E.D, an intense 9 week workout course.  I’m going on my third week & it feels so good to be so sore.  (Most of the time.)

(3) Read more books.  & good books!  ….it’s getting so frustrating at how many words I have forgotten, how small my vocabulary has become, how uncertain I am of spelling.  So tell me please of your favorite books!

(4) & of course, cook more dinners.  ….the biggest struggle for me of all time, it seems.  But thanks to Pinterest, I’ve been collecting delicious looking recipes to try & come February when we move into our new apartment, I’ll have a bigger kitchen with COUNTER SPACE.  So that’s at least two excuses cut off my list of reasons why I often eat a well balanced meal cereal for dinner.

I’m actually kind of hoping this last one is like the gym.  One night in October, I had a thought of the gym & went the next day.  I have been going consistently ever since.  I have yet to figure out where this motivation is coming from, maybe it’s a maturity thing?  But it hasn’t been much of a struggle to get myself to the gym.  It’s just something I do now.  It’s a priority.  But I’m hoping that the desire to make dinners come similarly.  How do you do it?  How do you figure out what to make every night & then actually do it?  That’s a level of planning that I have yet to conquer.

(5) & lastly, continue to search for balance.  As I write this, I’m wondering if it is my desire for balance lately that is fueling my motivation to go to the gym.  This last one takes me back to “Eat, Pray, Love”.  If you haven’t read it yet, do so please.  It could change your life.  Or at least make you think.  I need more books like that.  Know of any?

So forgetting the whole idea of New Years Resolutions, what are some changes you want to make in your life?  How do you want to live differently this year?  What do you want to do more of in your life?

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