As I stood in the Customer Service line at Academy today, browsing the latest get ripped quick gadgets and watching the people rush to the check out with yoga mats and push up bars in their hands and resolve in their eyes, I realized that I have been procrastinating. Not wanting to type a New Years Resolution. Once I type it, I feel like I'm locked in.
I feel like it needs to be a good one. And it needs to be do-able. An impossible goal will just make me feel like a failure.
Should I resolve to do my Bible study every morning as soon as I rise? (not likely with my Benjamin-alarm clock going off at unpredictable times and demanding immediate action from mama when he does sound off.)
Should I resolve to take at least three Les Mills classes per week at the health club? (I've done it before. I could do it again. But that will require me leaving Benjamin in the health club's childcare facility at least twice per week, so that's out.)
So maybe I should resolve to learn to leave Benjamin in childcare facilities for short periods of time (church nursery, MOPS Moppets room, health club KidZone...oh my gosh, my palms are sweating and my milk is beginning to let down just thinking about it!).
I could resolve to clean my house better, you know like not do anything fun until I've cleaned a room each day. (Wow, I think I just burned 600 calories from laughing at that idea.)
I can think of a hundred resolutions, a hundred ways to be leaner, cleaner, smarter, sexier, a better wife, mom, housekeeper, friend, writer, sister, daughter, granddaughter or volunteer. I could journal it to death, chart my own progress, become obsessed. But I just can't seem to decide this year.
2010. I can't believe it's already nine days into this year. It's going to be a big one. I have Benjamin's first birthday coming up fast, my second Mother's Day, our sixth anniversary, a new neice/nephew coming in the summer, weaning at some point, a thousand and one decisions, and you just never know what else. On New Year's Eve I started taking an inventory of 2009 and I couldn't believe how much happened: SIX babies in my family and another seven to my friends. SIX deaths among my aquaintance, thankfully all of them joining the congregation of the Redeemed, one of them at the tender age of two months. FOUR weddings in my family and another three among friends. We saw more people at our church begin the journey of one day at a time, celebrated years with many others. We had some favorite moments: seeing Benjamin for the first time. Seeing Benjamin look up at Jon for the first time when he heard his daddy's voice in the hospital room. Holding Benjamin, nursing him for the first time. Seeing him laugh when he first met his cousin Jackson. Singing
What A Wonderful World a gazillion times in ten months. Watching Benjamin with his great grandparents. Holding hands with Jon in church when we finally went back after the baby was born. Watching our sister Christina marry the love of her life and knowing that she has no idea how wonderful marriage is yet, but that she soon will. Holding Beth. Sitting in a room with Trish while we both nursed our babies. The first time Benjamin slept through the whole night and I realized I won't be tired forever. Seeing Jon look at me like I'm still the slender girl he married instead of the fleshier woman who still acts like she's eating for two.
I can't decide what to resolve on for the new year. Right now I just know that it will be full of the kinds of memories 2009 had for me and I want to enjoy them as they come. I want to be fully there in every one of them. I want to remember them so that, years from now, when I trace the map of my face in a mirror I'll know where that smile line came from and which exact sorrow deepened the empathetic brow line. And I'll let you know when (if) ever I decide which resolution will strengthen my overall resolve.
