New Year's Musings

I've always loved the new year. Fresh starts. New beginnings. All that jazz. If you were to read my New Year's blogs or journals for the last decade (or more), you'd probably find similar thoughts. I always have had so many things I wanted to change. I'd start with this big list of things I was going to do differently. I had good intentions.  I'd plan for days leading up to January 1. I'd always get so excited. But I view the new year a bit differently now.

Sure, wanting to better ourselves is a good thing. It means we realize we're not perfect and that we have room for improvement. And I am certainly not denying the importance of making changes where needed. Not at all. But when our desire to change ourselves stops us from enjoying what's in front of us, we need to find some balance. Moving toward change while enjoying where I am and even the journey and the process is a lesson I've been learning. I don't spend enough time "delighting in the life I've been given", as I recently read somewhere.

I guess the reason I've always loved planning my New Year's resolutions is because I want guaranteed outcomes. I want control. We want to know that if we do XY and Z, that our kids will be respectful, responsible and contributing adults. We want to know that if we choose just the right career, we will be guaranteed a job or a certain income. We want to know that if we choose the right spouse, we'll live happily ever after in wedded bliss and never feel lonely again.

 I want to know how things will turn out. I don't "do" trust very well. I never have. I need to see proof. I need constant reassurances. But life doesn't work that way. There are no guarantees. Kids can't be reduced to formulas. Marriages sometimes end. The economy tanks. Companies downsize. And I'm learning to be okay with that. It's not easy. But it is freeing.

So what about my New Year's resolutions for 2014? I don't know. They're not so set in stone anymore. I am doing a yell-free challenge. I suppose that's one. And I want to do more things I enjoy. Just for me.  But really, I'm leaving things much more open-ended anymore. Finding joy right where I am, to paraphrase something I heard in a sermon recently. Instead of relying on doing this long list of things and working until I can finally feel good about myself and my life. To just be still. Just be. And enjoy my life. And yes, make needed changes. But from a place of strength instead of desperation. And to trust. Oh, how I need to learn to trust......Ok, there I go, I'm making a list again. So old habits die hard. What can I say?

S - Skipping

S is for skipping. Yes, I am skipping the letter S. Why? Because I’m behind and because I don’t have anything good in mind for that letter. Yeah, I know there are lots of great words that start with S. Sunshine. Silence. Stillness. Sinister. And I’m pretty sure it’s the most popular letter on Wheel of Fortune. Still, I’m skipping it. So sue me.

R - Relationships

Not the hokey pokey. Relationships. That’s what life is all about. Not work or money. Not success or fame. We may spend lots of time trying to chase those things because they seem like they’re what it’s all about. But when it comes down to it, it’s about relationships. It applies in parenting too. It’s also very easy to forget in parenting. We’re so busy with the daily details of getting kids to school, to practice, to bed, feeding them, etc. etc. etc., that we can forget that it’s not about all the things we do for them. It’s about having a relationship with them. That’s what we must pursue with everything in our being. Why? Because sometimes relationships are hard. Now it’s hard to see this when you’re looking at your sweet little cooing baby. But wait until they hit eleven or twelve and suddenly get an attitude. They talk back; they fight you on everything. It feels like they are the enemy. This is when it gets tough. But this is when we have to remember that that’s what parenting is about. About loving our kid unconditionally and pursuing that relationship with the child even when said child is being more difficult to get along with than we could ever fathom. About not giving up when we don’t know how to reach them. About forgiving them and forgiving ourselves when we fail every single day. About choosing to take an interest in something we don’t give a hoot about simply because they do. About listening to them when they are ready to talk and not demanding they talk to us on *our* time table. About being there for them even when it’s inconvenient for us. About loving that kid when he’s at his most unlovable.

                                                                     

It’s hard. So hard. Harder than I ever dreamed at times. But that’s what relationships are about. No one ever said parenting was easy. No one ever said life was easy. Nothing great ever is.

Q - Quiet

                          “In quietness and trust is your strength” Isaiah 30:15

I am learning to appreciate the value of quiet. Chaos swirls around me most days with a toddler, a preteen and a big pup in our home. I know that one day I will miss the noise and craziness. But it also makes me treasure the quiet times. Early morning when one’s at school and the other is sleeping. Late evenings when everyone else is in bed. Our culture likes noise; we’re surrounded by it. It’s like we’re afraid to be silent, to be still, to be alone with our thoughts. When I walk our dog sometimes at night, I see televisions glowing in most of the homes.

Even when we can silence our surroundings, it can still be tough to quiet our minds. Last year our church had a day-long retreat. One of the exercises involved being silent in order to hear from God. We had to simply sit in silence for fifteen or twenty minutes and try to quiet our minds and listen. Most of us found it hard to stop our thoughts from racing. 

Why is it so hard to just be quiet? For me, at least, I think it’s partly because I am constantly trying to figure things out or to control things in my world. Or maybe we feel like our worth lies in doing enough, in accomplishment. We don’t want one minute of downtime. That would be wasted time. But is it?

Quiet can restore us; it can calm us. It enables us to tackle our busy life with renewed vigor. And as the verse says, that’s where our strength is. That’s where God speaks to us. In the quiet. In the stillness. Deep within our hearts. Could it be that that’s what we are afraid of? Is that what we run from?

P - Present

No one is present where they are anymore. At least, that’s how it seems. This is one of my pet peeves. I go to the grocery store, and people are on their cell phones. The other night I saw a couple walking through the neighborhood. Both were on cell phones. We have to wait; what do we do? Get out the phone or electronic device. God forbid we actually engage right where we are.

Not that technology is a bad thing. Certainly there are times it makes life much easier. But we take a good thing and abuse it. Suddenly we can’t be anywhere without our crutches. What if we actually had to talk to the clerk in the store? Or, God forbid, be a little bored for five minutes? It’s not going to kill us.

And what are our kids learning from all this? How can we expect them to have any sort of ability to focus or pay attention when we don’t? What message does it send to them that we spend so much time on these diversions and get irritated when they interrupt or distract us?

Fact is, the present is all we really have. We’re not guaranteed anything else. We need to embrace what’s right in front of us. I have a feeling that when we get to the end of our lives, we won’t be wishing that we had spent more time with our electronics. We’ll be wishing we’d spent more time being really present. Right where we were.

O - Overwhelmed

O is for overwhelmed. Obviously. Or can you not tell? Oh, where are M & N? Over the rainbow. On the trash heap. Ok, I can’t keep this up much longer; it’s just annoying.

I overwhelm easily. It doesn’t take much. I actually had M and N posts. I made notes and everything. Lots of thoughts in my head. Maybe I will flesh them out after the A to Z challenge and post them. For now, I cannot let the overwhelm get the best of me. Onward I go.

Life throws a lot at us. The house is such a mess, we don’t know where to start. We can’t even get dinner on the table because the baby is screaming, the dog’s chewing something and we can’t find a clean pot.

I’m certainly no expert because I still struggle with it. But what does help me is to focus on this: one thing. Just do something. One thing. The only thing that maybe I know to do. It may not feel like much. But it’s one step in the right direction. When I have a pile of dishes or papers that overwhelms me, I sometimes use this trick. Every time I walk by said pile, I clean up one thing. Just one. At first, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing much. But it’s also easy and non-threatening. And eventually you get to where you can see progress. It’s amazing how your point of view changes when you can see a little progress. You’re not so overwhelmed anymore.

This can be applied to bigger things too. You may not have a clue how to solve world hunger, but you can donate to or volunteer at your local soup kitchen. You may not be able to do anything about the partisan political climate, but you can stop demonizing those who disagree with you. You may not be able to bring about world peace singlehandedly, but you can stop belittling your child.

You don’t have to do it all. Just do one thing. Just one. Try it.

L - Life Lessons

Yep. I’m skipping J and K. Why? Well, the perfectionist in me really really wants to write a J post and a K post. But the realist in me knows that the further behind I get, the more overwhelmed I will be. And giving up isn’t far behind.

 Sometimes life is like that. You get further and further behind and just cannot catch up. I have learned that you just have to jump in where you are. (Well, shoot, that would have been a J post, wouldn’t it?) You have to leave behind what you haven’t done. You have to cut yourself some slack and look forward. Otherwise it’s too easy to just give up. Believe me, I’ve almost given up on this challenge already and it’s not quite half over. Sometimes you just gotta squeeze by. And that’s okay. Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to be a little lazy, to write not as well as you’d like, to just do it versus doing it well. To show yourself some love. I was watching a talk show where the co-host was saying that we are all okay. That was her message. We just need to accept ourselves – faults and all. We are okay. Even when we can’t write a coherent post. Or when we fall behind in the A to Z Challenge. Or we can't say no to the raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream. We are okay. I am okay. And that, boys and girls, is your life lesson for today.