I'm not all that resolute, so I'll call them New Year's Considerations
Well, it turns out that the Wii isn't quite enough to make me stop wishing that every post could be labeled "Road to Publication", that new years are scarier than they used to be, and yoga is awesome.
The first is self-explanatory. I'm a teensy bit obsessed, but I no longer care. You don't get what you want without caring about it very much. So I'm just going to keep caring. TTYR.
I adore the New Year holiday. First of all, because I need a buffer between Christmas and reality. Christmas is like a fairy tale. January, especially in Missouri, is cold, hard reality. The New Year eases me in with an extra day off work, warm happy thoughts, and lots of snacks and stuff. I like that. Plus, I totally buy in to all that this-is-our-year! stuff. Because you never know when it just might be. But then, this year, after thinking all those rosy, dreamy thoughts, I got scared. Because I was probably all rosy back in January of 2005 too, and that's the year I had cancer. Which despite giving me the premise for a book to finally actually finish and a new lease on life and a bigger laugh and stuff, also scared the living daylights out of me. (I wanted to say crap - that it scared the crap out of me, but I don't really like to jar my mom that much, and she'd be really jarred if I said that on my blog - even though it felt more like crap than daylights - because I don't even know what those are.)
I have a friend who used to look forward on New Year's Eve and actually pray with her husband and try to find out just what the new year held. Even pre-cancer I knew I wanted none of that. I hoped I could face anything that came, but I didn't want to know it ahead of time. And this year, sure enough, I stopped short when I clinked my sparkling raspberry grape juice cup with the boys (turns out, the raspberry is not better than plain old grape), because I realized how little any of us know what the year might hold.
Fortunately we don't know the good stuff either, and there might be plenty. But all the same, I'm afraid I don't look ahead with the same naivete as before. I think this is what people mean by one day at a time.
Which brings me to yoga. I didn't make New Year's resolutions. I never really do, although I do kind of believe in them. I mean, hey, if there's something you need to change it's worth a shot. But I do really hope to be more fit this year, to put a little more effort into my well-being. And I hope to be more grateful. Every day. Yoga helps with both. I look forward to that hour, because it's energizing and relaxing all at once. But then, throughout the day, I find myself whooshed to that yoga place now and then just when I was headed to perhaps a more stressful one. It's very centering and peaceful. Very serenity now. I don't know if it's yoga specifically or just activity in general, because I took a walk with the boys today and felt awesome after that as well. I can't do the walk barefoot, which is something I love about yoga. But I can't hold Jake's hand during yoga either, which is something I loved about the walk.
So here's hoping I care enough about my writing career to help it happen but not so much that I obsess, that I can face the year with gratitude for all the good and bravery for the rest, and that I remember what it does for a body - Just. To. Move it.