I Think This Is My New New Year's Resolution

 I'm not going to pretend I don't ever make New Year's Resolutions.

I am the kind of person who gets excited about calendars, goal setting, and the Evernote Ap on my phone that keeps me on path. I love fresh ideas, planning retreats, and dreaming of the future. 

Or at least I used to be.

I think 2020 might have kind of broke me. I'm painfully aware lately of just how little control we have over things. I barely know whether we'll be able to make our dentist appointment Monday, much less if I'll be able to train for a marathon, follow a low carb diet, or check some National Parks off our Bucket list. At this time last year I was elbow deep in plans for planning a morning art and science day-camp experience at our church...who would've ever dreamed that by March I'd be trying to teach Bible stories over zoom instead? 

So I'm a little gun-shy when it comes to committing to anything bigger than thawing something for dinner as we come into 2021. 

As we started to talk about it yesterday I jokingly said, "I'd like to spend less time with my family." Just kidding...kind of. 

But today, with the clarity that comes from taking down Christmas decorations, I could finally formulate into words what my goals this year looked like. The other people who live here seemed to agree.

I want to maintain the good habits we've made in 2020 and undo the bad ones.

Here's some of the good ones-

I think I've let go of a lot of FOMO. I'd see other families doing all these things, and think that we also needed to do all the things. It became the rubric I graded myself on. If we weren't jumping from sporting event to sporting event we were selfish and lazy. If we weren't invited to every party, we were obviously not fun or likeable. My worth as a mom could be measured by how many "experiences" I could cram into a year. The standard for a happy childhood was how many trips we'd taken, museums we'd visited, indoor playparks we had memberships to. 

I'm not bashing "experiences." Staying busy as a family definitely doesn't make someone a bad mom by any means. I am thankful for the unique experiences my kids have had and the cool places they've visited. And, don't get me wrong...I have a list of things to do again once the hospital beds in my state aren't at 120%capacity from a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic sweeping through. I want to see the Avett Brothers live at the Red Rocks, take maskless pictures with Santa at the Christmas at the Princess, and, maybe even Disneyland. But least go see a movie in the theater again.

But, I think this year I've finally let go of the idea that quality time with my family requires a ticket and admission fee. We've found plenty of ways to make our own fun memories together. Some of our favorite moments this year have been the least Instagram worthy. And we've realized that sometimes when we used to force fun, the pursuit of a good time was actually just causing us stress and disappointment. I'm learning that there's no shame in being content with a simpler life.

There's a few other habits I'd like to keep-a more regular morning Bible reading and prayer pattern, supporting local businesses more, and resisting the urge to "power through" when me or the boys are feeling a little unwell. I've learned more than ever what an impact our personal health has on the health of others, and our responsibility to guard those ripple effects. I profoundly regret the times in years past when being seen as responsible and "showing up" meant more to me than protecting others from illnesses as mild as they might seem, and I plan to maintain this newer conviction. 

I'm going to keep being adaptable. I used to have to know everything. Now all I need to know is what I'm doing for the next hour. Getting new flooring seems to be causing more chaos than I thought? It's okay to decide at 5:30 p.m. to check into a hotel for the night. Don't know if the stores are out of toilet paper, rice, flour, bread, and anything made from a chicken, cow, or pig? No worries! Maybe the kids will return to school at the end of Spring break 2020...or maybe in August of 2021...who knows...we got this! I'm actually kind of proud of how much I've grown in this area!

Now for the really vulnerable part. The habits I picked up in 2020 that I need to reverse-

1. Living to eat instead of eating to live. When everything shut down in 2020 we were actually in a very healthy place at the time. But, all of a sudden the only allowable thing that seemed exciting was food. Carry-out, fun snacks dropped off from friends and family, the banana bread I made over and over, supporting our favorite gelato place. First I justified it as "This will be short and then we'll get right on track." Wrong. Then I justified it as "Life stinks. Why not at least enjoy some ice cream?" Then there were moments where it seriously felt like the world was going to end before any of those calories hit our hips anyway. But, today's a new day. And I need to quit feeding myself and my family as though we're in an apocalypse. Salmon and Brussel sprouts for dinner tonight!

2. I (we) need to quit sitting around so much. Like the food, I started off thinking we'd get through this short quarantine with some extra XBox and Disney+. The world was in crisis so what could a little extra screen time hurt? But...9 months later some things that were once not so bad I'm now realizing are a little excessive. I'm not setting crazy goals. But I'm going to find my fit bit charger. And we're going to play more basketball and go on more hikes. And make less excuses.

3. I need to quit reading the comments on articles posted on Facebook. I could say a lot more about how I should unplug more, put down my phone, stop letting people who are not my friends stay rent free in my mind. But we all gotta start somewhere. And I'm starting with not reading the comments section on articles...whether it's from a family member or some stranger who lives in a basement in the Ukraine somewhere and pretends to be a teacher named Karen. Not reading it.

Someday I'll make bigger goals again. But right now I just want to spend the year processing and sorting out the person I became in 2020. And just like when I cleaned out my closet last March, I'm going to make a pile of  "keep", "donate", and "throw away" for my life in 2021.