December 30, 2009
Time
I feel as though I want to get an entry in before 2009 closes. Like you, I feel some pressure to respond to the New Year with enthusiasm and renewal, but I do need to be realistic also. This is the prime time for reflection, this turning of the calendar page, this big celebration where we say good bye to the old year and welcome the new one. I love the symbolism here and I love the starkness and potential that the pristine calendar sheet conceals. It gives power and hope as I continue to renew myself and continue to try to build a better person out of me. I have all the customary wishes for the new year, organize my house, lose weight, exercise more, learn yoga, etc, but then I have some other things that may not show up on a list or in a magazine. I want to be more active in 2010. I want to let go of some constraints. I have already begun; I have let go of the idea that my physical world, i.e. my house, has to be in photo ready order, ever. I let that go a while back. I cannot explain how freeing that was. I actually posted an entry referring to it earlier this year. This perspective has given me freedom and has released me from an obligation that I did not need. I actually love the candidness and the looseness of my house now. It is so healing to dismiss the concern that things have to be in order to be enjoyed and it is so liberating to know that anyone can just drop in anytime and I am so good with that. I love this place I have risen to and am so regretful that I was ever not here – what a waste of time and energy. Another intangible I want to work on in the New Year is to be more accepting and less responsible for choices people I love make. This is a big one when you have been mom for 28 years and have had to manage a child’s entire life from the bare essentials like food, to where they go on weekends. All of a sudden, it seems, you need to let it go. Difficult. This is something I will have to consciously work on in the New Year; I have to redefine my role and get comfortable with it, I mean, love it. Again, this will be a source of freedom and liberation for me, and more importantly, liberation for my children. I seem to be rebuilding my universe and it is becoming quaint and small. I love that. I love that I don’t require as much. I don’t need all of my husband’s attention, it is okay that he is not hanging on every word I say or noticing everything I do, I do not do things for attention, I do things because they need doing or because I want to do them. I have already established the fact that I don’t need to prepare my house for visitors, but to add to that, I don’t have to worry about if new paint gets marred or if the cabinet door doesn’t close just right – those things have become celebrated character marks instead of an entry on the perpetual “things to do list”.. It is also okay if I don’t cook supper occasionally. We have all developed into healthy adults and can find something on our own to eat. Very liberating stuff. I will have to work hard letting go, but I need to do it for the benefit of all, including myself. Something else that is changing is my focus on friendships, especially those that have withstood the test of time. I have, like you, sorted out, eliminated, and, kept those that are real, and have, by now, let those that are not, dissolve. Time is finite. I will end this rambling with a quote my son, William, shared with me over the holiday. It is something his former coach, Nick Saban, said and I do not have the exactness to actually quote, but it was something about
“time” – we can either spend it or invest it.
Happy New Year,
p.s.
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