New Year – Same Self

I can’t help but shake that feeling a new year brings that I’m supposed to “do better,” “improve,” or “make it count.”  Bold directives that remind me of the anxious anticipation of waiting for my turn in a grade school relay race. Messages that don’t make me want to run as much as they make me want to run away.

In these heady days of a new year, I feel uber-aware of every action, or worse, every inaction.  It’s a similar feeling to the relief of confession. I love the clean slate but I also want to lock myself in the house or duct tape my mouth closed so I won’t risk sinning again. Once we delve into the grit and grind of life, both a new year and a clean soul can easily tarnish like the best of intentions.

Only, I’m not a new person despite the change on the calendar. I sat down to work and immediately googled Lab Rescues of Florida. I am not planning on getting another dog in 2021, but somehow the urge to read the personality traits and health history of every adoptable dog was a pressing priority. Likewise, while I intended to work at my desk with ergonomically correct posture this year, I slouched on the couch hovering over the keyboard, spine twisted like a buttery breadstick. By mid-afternoon, I passed my water cup in lieu of the curdle of reheated coffee. None of it felt very ‘new.’

Every year, each family member picks a word to guide or inspire them for the next 365 days. (Last year, my word was brave. I learned that was like praying for patience and I spent the year facing all kinds of situations that terrified me.) When my husband asked me about my word for this year, I was hesitant. We debated the merits of the words “freedom,” and “embrace.”  I was afraid if I chose “freedom,” I would have a slew of rescue dogs living with me by the year’s end. Read more

Resolution: Every Moment Anew

All of the hoopla of a new year — a new decade can feel overwhelming like the throngs of crowds who enthusiastically greet it in celebration when the clock strikes midnight.  This year I slept right through it.  Partly because it makes more sense to start anew with a proper night’s sleep and mostly because I am just not that into the hype of a new year.  I’m not interested in goal-setting or resolutions or crushing it (whatever “it” may be.)   It’s not because I’m complacent or lack ambition or betterment.  It’s just that for me, resolutions never seem to be the way to affect genuine life change.

By nature, I was always a rules person.  I played by the rules.  I made countless rules.  I was disciplined (and neurotic) enough to think the criteria I set for my life was paramount to achieving success or at least to maintaining order.

Not in the span of a day or even a year, but in incremental shifts and small seemingly insignificant moments, I realized that however well-intentioned my resolutions were, they were feeding a mindset of unworthiness. Instead, I began to consider the threshold of unconditional love that is the basis of Christianity.  I tried to wrap my head around the enormous truth of being loved right where we are and I started to question the motivations that ruled me.  I came to know mercy in a meaningful way.  I didn’t use it as a crutch to allow myself to do whatever I pleased.  It wasn’t an invitation to complacency.  It was motivation to stop putting emphasis on the worldly and pay more attention to the worthwhile.  It was permission to let go of the perfect and find grace in imperfection.   It was possibilities made endless through the merits of forgiveness, the boundless pursuit of compassion, and the insurmountable power of love.

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