happy january

photo courtesy of Hope Stanley

A new year. This year I'll finish the sweater I started knitting in 2012. This year I'll lose some weight. This year I'll spend more time with Jesus. This year I'll sleep less. This year I'll spend less time on my computer and my phone. This year I'll drink less (as she sips her wine and keeps typing). This year I'll be more careful with the way I spend my (sigh, our) money. This year I'll love my husband well. This year I'll focus less on the things I don't like about myself.

So there's the list. Good thing it's still January, and I can say I made my resolutions. It's interesting, because I look at that list and feel pretty ok with it because those aren't bad things. They're noble, worthy goals that I and a billion other people make and congratulate ourselves about because admitting is a step in the right direction, right?


I mean...yes. For sure. Feel better about yourself. Be the person you're made to be. But I also keep hearing this stuff about living life to the fullest. Usually it's tied to someone who is dying or struggling with an illness. Confession: Something you should know about me that I, A. do not take lightly, B. think can be used for good, and C. think will help you as you trudge through some of my posts is that I have OCD. I'm not totally a freak, but it takes a certain amount of love from my husband and my family [and maybe some medication] to keep my head from worrying about this or that, obsessing about contracting illnesses, fearing things that I have no control over, etc.

With this confession comes part 2, where I connect my thoughts so that they make sense. This new year I'm not just consumed with all the things I want to do better; I'm thinking about the way that I fundamentally live my life. I'm here living in a big city away from my big sister who is sick, and it's really so bizarre to do the life that I have in front of me - that everyone around me is living -and pretend that nothing else is really going on. And then I talk to my sweet sister, who finds joy in the fact that she can honestly tell people that God is bigger than her illness, and I wonder: what the hell am I doing. I don't think she's a martyr or would want to that tied to her name by any means. And I'm not saying to live like you were dying really. I guess I'm saying to live like you were living.

So watch this video. 2nd confession: I love Hoda and Kathie Lee. (Guilty pleasure. Something about how they are always laughing.) And again I marvel at the joy people find in the midst of circumstances. The last statement in the clip: "She is totally alive" struck me because I don't really even know what that means. The woman in the clip may only have a little while longer on earth but she is all the way HERE. She is reconciled to what may happen and to what she's already been given.

It totally 360's my perspective. Honestly if a perspective shift happened every January to everyone, that would probably be the best resolution. A resolve to touch, taste, hear, see, smell. I don't think that living looks the same for everyone. But for me it looks less like joining a gym, getting up on Sundays to go to church, getting the promotion you deserve, cleaning out your house, or staying away from chocolate for a whole year. For me it's hugging my sister tighter...and praying that I can give myself grace for not having all my shit together....

Also, just to be clear, that's not to say I won't finish my sweater and love my husband better this year.

Happy New Year, friends.