clean slate

yeah right... i don't even really want a clean slate. all this dirt gives me character, right?

but a whole new year of possibilities. does it make me sound crazy to say that this is the first year i realize that this is a cycle? i have figured out i go through life holding on to each moment like it's the last one i'll get...which some writers say we should do. but i find it exhausting. it's like i'm always claw holding onto things...don't want to let go of this, need more of that...never enough, always too much...it's uhm, not relaxing at all.

but at church the other day, the priest said that we only celebrate the holy family once a year...that we wouldn't celebrate them again until this time next year, and something just clicked. oh yeah...we will do this again...and again...and even again...wow... (light bulb moment)

and that's helped me to relax. opportunities come again and again. (i definitely think this will make the having faith in others learning from their mistakes and not having to be the one to teach them a hell of a lot easier...) maybe this will make running easier, too... not having to worry that i blew it, you know? a friend quoted bono on her blog...it's not failure if you're still trying. (uh, yeah, that was paraphrasing on my part)

so resolutions... i'm too tired to feel too committed to any sort of thing as definite sounding as a resolution, but there are things i will be praying about and hoping for in the coming year...for myself, my family, the world around me...

i really want to get my kids involved in a volunteer community service kind of project. and this will be the year for that, i'm fairly certain. they need a sense of the world outside of themselves, their homes, this family...and their ability to have an impact in it...

i'd like to work on complaining less. although, since i rarely said anything negative about my life as a child and had zero skills in standing up for myself, i'm not going to cut myself off entirely. but i will try to find a more constructive, active way of handling those feelings when they visit.

i want to spend more time engaged with my kids...be it board games, reading to them (when did i stop doing that?), cooking with them...

and i want to keep writing and reading. blogging has made writing a lot easier, i admit. but i miss the physical process of writing. i like my handwriting...i like drawing and doodling and all the character you can put on a journal page. so maybe i'll just have to keep creative journaling with the kids...

i want to start getting a little more accomplished school-wise. i feel like there's so much more we are capable of, if i can get the kids on board...and that's the key there...finding a way to, as my bil says, "create a spirit of cooperation and collaboration"....but i think that involves, uh, cooperation and collaboration. which we could all stand to work a little harder towards.

and i have got to let go of some of the guilt i feel so often...even when i'm not aware. it's too much and i think it's giving me wrinkles and grey hair (did i mention i found another one?!?!). but seriously, it dampens so much of me, that it is time to let it go and stop trying to protect myself by holding on to it. (i do not understand that mechanism...i am only just realizing it)

ok...wishing everyone some peace today... (and i think some naps might help us all, too)
:)