New Year

It’s Dec 31, 2018.

This is the first year of all my many years of making New Year’s Resolutions that I am 100% comfortable looking back. I can remember with fondness my plans for 2018.
It worked out pretty much like I wanted it to. (So many firsts!) 😉
The first year there’s no guilt (or laughter) about what I didn’t do that I thought I wanted to but clearly didn’t.
The first year I’m not distracting myself so much by looking forward that I miss the sweetness of reflecting on the year prior.
The first in a while that the moments of intense pain and whatever happened this year, didn’t make me look at the old calendar, give it a cold hard stare and tell it,

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!!!”

Any time it crossed my mind that New Year’s Resolution Season was upon me once again, it triggered nothing but peace and smiles and inward giggles and maybe even a slice of joy.

Lower The Bar

The best New Year’s Resolution of all time.

It lasted me a full 365 days.
I rocked its socks, man. Totally nailed it. Mission accomplished, you guys. 

“So, what about this year?” my sister asked this week, “How are you going to top that one?”
Oh, I’m totally not. That would be raising the bar, y’all, and the resolution was to lower it. So that’s not even a question.

As I’ve pondered it — in WAY less time than last year, btw, because, lower the bar. Can’t over-think it, you know. Again, boom, nailed it! I love that goal!!!
Sorry, interrupted myself again. I was saying.

As I pondered it deeply for about 10 seconds here and there, I realized something:
That drive compelling me to figure out a focus for the year?
It’s just not even there. I don’t even care.

But if I had to sum up what that feels like and put it into a focus statement, it would be —

NO EXPECTATIONS.
Ha.
None.

Life is going to be what it is going to be.
I am going to be what I’m going to be.
I’m going to do what I do.

I don’t think trees notice the change in seasons and say, “Okay, guys, here we go again. THIS time, we’re going to grow higher faster and try harder to get those blossoms just right. More like that one tree over there. Leaves in better places, stronger growth in these main branches, don’t waste energy on the ones that don’t matter as much… THIS year, we’re going to get it right.”

photo credit: SALT photography

No, that’s ridiculous. They just grow. The roll with this rock around the sun and they be what they are. They absorb what’s around them without worrying about when it’ll rain again (because they don’t control the rain or what’s in the ground, right? They just trust it’ll be there and adapt when it’s not).  And then, miracle of miracles, they transmute it into growth and resources that benefit the whole world. In their own little way, they keep the whole planet alive. Well, them and the kelp. But I’m sure kelp aren’t making any resolutions either.

I trust me well enough by now in my ripe old age of almost-37, to know that -duh- of course I’m going to be trying to do things well. Of course I’m going to be growing and changing, lightening and brightening the world around me, or at least trying to. Of course I’m going to be working on improving things.

I want to be celebrating and rejoicing with the world (like, the nature world, not the crazy insane-people driven world) as it rolls through its seasons… and honestly, you just can’t do that if you’re in this “grasping for something different” mode. Well, okay, *I* can’t do that very well. Maybe you can. I truly remember with deep happiness, the years when I thrived off that inner reaching, that feeling that something could be better if I xyz‘ed differently.

But that feeling isn’t here now. Maybe it’s hiding in all these unpacked boxes, lol!

Or maybe in making a goal last year that I actually could meet without even trying, maybe in creating a goal that made me go, “WOW, GO ME!!!” every time I thought of it, and then if I clearly missed it, it was an even better, “well, hey, go me!!!”… maybe in doing that, something profound changed in me.

I don’t need a word. I don’t need a focus. I don’t need a book list. I don’t even want one. It would be almost sad if it weren’t so not-sad.

I’m not boycotting it. It’s not like a resolution to rebel against resolutions. I honestly just lowered the bar so low in 2018, it disappeared when I went to find it.

That’s right. For the first time ever, there is no bar to lower. It’s just me and God and my family and whatever crazy shenanigans come up.

…and it’s weird. But it’s a good kind of weird.

I was more excited last year, maybe. This one is actually, possibly, a little bit boring compared to the others, all bursting with great expectations and fond hopes and whatever other excitement I dreamed up. But that’s not better. It’s just different. That was last season. This season is different,

and I have no expectations about what it’ll look like. We’ll all just find out together – and I will cheer you on with your resolutions, whatever they are.

Aloha, 2018, and Aloha, 2019.

May you be sisters that add to each other’s greatness without any need for competition or comparison.