My Resolve

Today I thought it would be good to review how things are going with my resolution for the year. Three months into 2014 seems like a good checkpoint for this. By now most people have begun to wonder why they wasted money on that gym membership. Others fell off the diet after a few weeks. Thankfully, I didn't make resolutions to go to the gym or go on a diet. My resolution was to live each day in the moment and try to enjoy them to the fullest so I could remember more of my year than I would running around like a crazy person.

I'm sorry to say that my resolve evaporated somewhere in mid-February. I'm not really even sure when it happened exactly. I started out January doing well. But this idea of living in the moment gradually melted away. I could blame other things for this. Unexpected family illnesses, over scheduling myself with activities for both me and my kids, too many snow days. I can think of plenty of reasons why I suddenly realized I was back on that silly hamster wheel again. But really all of the stuff I just listed can be attributed to life. The true reason I fell off the resolution wagon wasn't because of any of those things. It was much simpler than that. I forgot all about my resolution. I got busy and it slipped away.

It wasn't until I was reading a book that I became aware of this fact. In the book, (unfortunately not one of my books from the to-be-read pile I have that is neverending, but a library book instead) one of the main characters is describing consciously feeling spring. She is a creature that was created from the earth and therefore could tangibly feel it waking up all around her in Central Park. It made me thirst to have a moment where I could be outside and I could feel spring all around me. Just to be in nature and feel and smell the warmth, the flowers, the sounds of the earth waking up after a long, cold sleep. It sounded lovely. That was when I remembered my new year resolution. The one where I was supposed to be doing just what I longed to do--to live in that moment and absorb what was going on. Instead, I was living by my weekly calendar, actively planning ahead to what I needed to do next. Don't get me wrong. I knew from the beginning that I would still need to keep up with my weekly activities and check my calendar each day. I'm not such an idealist that my resolution meant I'd stop living in the real world. It just meant that right now even though I know what I'd like to do or need to do next this morning, I can't enjoy what I am doing now, which is blogging. And it is perfectly okay for me to take a breath, look around my kitchen, and be thankful that I live in a place where I am free to live how I choose as I look at my weekly calendar to remember what I have in store for me. So, tomorrow when my alarm goes off and I have to remember where I am and what day it is (because I'm still not used to being on daylight savings time) I also have to remember to take a breath, listen to all those noisy little birds outside and be thankful I woke up to another morning.