Write it down

I generally don't make resolutions. They just feel more like "potential failures" to me. Granted, I sometimes make a loose goal, create an ideal, pursue a good intention, but very rarely do I commit. It is probably just because I know how truly terrible I am at keeping them. Let's face it, I am the girl who hates playing any sort of game that I know I can't win. Basketball, tennis, even Phase One? Just count me out. I know I am not winning and I don't want to play. I don't want to fail. I don't like the feeling of losing, of disappointing, of coming up short... again. So, I just don't play, and I certainly don't make resolutions.

But it is just so hard to enter the New Year without thinking about them. And this year, I thought a LOT about them. Maybe it is the first time in years that I have realized how much in me I really do want to change. Maybe I just feel more resolve than any year previous. Or maybe I am just beginning to scratch the surface of the truth that I really can do anything.

Whatever the reason, this year I did it. Not only did I come up with some lofty goals. This year, I really went for broke. I wrote my resolutions down.

There is something about putting pen to paper that is so solidifying, so permanent, so... freeing. I wrote them down... one or two at first but then they began to flow. It isn't about going to the gym, it's not even about giving up sweets (although I hope to be able to work on both of these things in 2010) but rather really taking the time to focus on who I am, who I really want to be and how I get there. I long to recognize my failures, embrace my hurts, find God working in the everyday. I want to be aware. I want to live. I want to love... without reserve or condition.

Now, I am not delusional. I know that I am going to fail. I know that there are days when I won't hit the mark and in those days, I will be tempted to see that list of resolutions more like a list of predetermined failures but it really isn't about that anymore. It isn't about always KEEPING every resolution. In some ways, it is just about making the resolutions themselves. I am jumping in, I am off the sidelines, I am in the game. Deal me in. I probably won't make every shot, I won't win every game, but when I DO, it will feel good. It will feel right. And it will move me one more step closer to being the woman that I really know I am meant to be, the woman God created me to be. And that makes staring down that list of potential failures totally worth it.