Resolute

The third day of the new year.  What can I say that hasn't already been said?  I'm not a resolution maker, at least not in the "2010 is ending and 2011 is beginning so I'd better resolve to promise dramatic change on which I can't possibly deliver" sense.  Nope.  Not me.  No need.  Don't have to.  I DO IT ALL-L year!

Why wait for one night, one day, when I can launch into each morning with a countdown of the multiple areas in which I fail to measure up to real and imagined standards: those from church, those self-imposed, those intimated by relatives and friends, those which are hurled like darts with fishhook tips into the psyche courtesy of the myriad delivery systems of the mass media?  As these countless tiny ants crawl across my brain, threatening to overtake the fading vestiges of peace still clinging groggily to my waking self, overwhelming me with unreasonable expectations, I remind myself that perhaps --JUST perhaps -- there is do urgent need to change everything about me.  About my life.  About my family.  About anything and everything.

From those obsessive five pounds of unruly weight which seem to shout out just how out-of-control I must be because I didn't quit wheat, dairy, and sugar, AGAIN, to the tsk-tsking over the worst front lawn in the neighborhood (because my husband and I don't see eye to eye on the use, or non-use, of chemicals, and thus have arrived at a landscaping stalemate which has left us with 'mixed greens') to the disappointment that I can't memorize enough scripture to perfect a faith and prayer life which has actually managed to see me through a host of widely agreed upon trying times.  And let's not forget the burden of trying to figure out exactly where I inadvertently flubbed up in juggling all of my relationships and caused someone displeasure that is never actually spoken but sits, elephantine, between us.

Or figuring out how to make the math work concerning the great 'they say we need this' directives: eight hours of sleep, an hour of exercise with stretching, an hour to pray or meditate, eight hours to work, quality time with the kids, intimate time with the spouse, meal planning, house cleaning, grocery shopping, four steps to washing and moisturizing one's skin for a more youthful appearance, time just for ME, calls to friends and loved ones outside the family unit, charity work, balance the checkbook, reading the classics, catching a movie, doing what Jesus would do, emptying the inbox, recycling the junk mail, writing a blog, making appointments, keeping appointments, reducing stress, drinking six to eight cups of water a day, brushing the dog, taking vitamins, style one's hair, update one's wardrobe and make-up, refinance the house, go back to school, reinvent the wheel, put air in the tires and check window washer fluid, spellcheck, and BREATHE deeply.  (I quit breathing way back at the start of the previous sentence!)

There may be just cause for personal adjustments.  At times.  But what seems to be making its way to the front of the audience with me over the past year or two is that the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" might have merit.  Perhaps, in this change-obsessive culture where an iPod is obsolete before it's even out of the package, we peer far too closely at our molehills, psyching them into mountains far better suited to the locales of Colorado or Alaska than to our hearts and minds.  Far better to appreciate the land mass adjacent to the molehills for all the wide open space and panoramic views it presents if we but take a good long look.  (I'm not insinuating that me, or anyone else, has a butt comparable to a large land mass.)  That's what I'm working on in my non-resolution state of being.  Because I am NOT going to obsess over whether I mixed metaphors in this paragraph and insist to my self, "Self, you need to rewrite this and waste a possible hour of sleep trying to hone something that doesn't need honing, because it's the principle of the thing, and you resolved to work on your writing, didn't you . . . "  Blah, blah, blah.  Who's going to remember this the moment they click off?  Who actually cares out there if I DID mix my metaphors?  It's a blog.  Not a contest entry.  Not an honors English paper.  A blog.  It rhymes with frog.  Not with 'resolution!'