Skip to main content

New Years Anticipation

We all know about the resolution stuff.
Every December 31st we faithfully think about what went wrong this past year, and about what we can do this new year to make it better. We think about ourselves, our situations, our hopes and dreams and from that colorful canvas, we try to pull out some key components and loyally promise to change or fullfill them.

Yeah...

How's that going for you?

Hopefully better then it goes for me. I start out with strong intentions, and by the end of the year, the backwards path is littered with them and I am in the same place where I started. Maybe because they were the wrong ones?  Needless to say, most end of Decembers, I just get depressed about last year's failed resolutions, and never even get to the new year ones.
So this year, I'm going to try something new. Instead of mindlessly pursuing the acceptable norm (and failing it), I'm going to go out on a limb. How about, instead of resolution, I shoot for anticipation.
I mean, seriously, when in life is anything really resolved? And why would we want it to be? We endlessly try to label, define and control our lives. If only I changed my hairstyle, I would get a better job. If only I stopped eating donuts I would lose 30 lb. and get a better social life. If only I was a better person, I would have had a healthy baby. Those thoughts aren't based in reality because if they were, we would all have perfect lives and never experience any hardships. So how would penning a simple list once a year magically erase our troubles? And every year we can just close and seal the file, wipe our hands in relief and get to start over?  Like an old teacher of mine used to say, "close but no cigar." It's good to think about it, but lets try it from another angle.
Here is how I'm going to do it:
 I resolve this year, to face my life with more joyful anticipation of all the things that will happen to me and my family, our friends and neighbors, known and unknown. The good, the bad, and the freakily terrifying; all, I will try to meet with peace, because in everything there is the lesson of love.
  Life is like a shot in the dark, and God is the archer, and our choices and hearts is the wind that steers the arrow. Where are we going? Lets pray in anticipation that this coming new year, our arrows will fly just a little bit higher, a little bit truer than last years, and that guided by our faithful anticipation, we will face whatever comes to pass with peaceful joy and grace.

Happy New Year everyone!
With all our love and prayers! Leo, Justin, Nika (& Cat) and Anna





Comments

  1. Happy New Year to all of you, as well( & the cat) With love & prayers...all IS possible:-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. HAPPY NEW YEAR...
    really cute pic

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

With Mixed Feelings

So for the past couple weeks my feed has been filled with the "back to school" and "end of summer" and "beginning of parental freedom from their annoying offspring" photos. It's ok, I totally get it. Another year, another back to school pic, another notch in the door jamb, and another chapter of growth and development with junior. Look at him go! Or not, as the case may be for many children. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease control and Prevention) one in six children has one...a developmental disability. A stamp of "not normal" across their foreheads. A number. A check mark in a box. My kid is one of them. I heard a brief segment on NPR that enticingly started out with the title of developmental delays on the rise, a 17% increase over the last twelve years. And though I turned up the volume the segment only talked about how it's probably only due to poverty, and it's only the upper classes that actually pursue diagnosis...

Putting The Lion Back Into The Wild

I'm actually home tonight while the 'boys" are at the PICU for what could be, maybe, possibly, our last night. It's almost hard to believe that we could go home. It's like those animals who have been in captivity who are finally let out almost don't know what to do, and often cower in fear and confusion in their cages. We would be cowering, but that sounds like it takes too much energy. We are completely exhausted after ten days of this shunt malfunction marathon.  Yesterday afternoon Leo had the hopefully final surgery to fix his shunt. The Neurosurgeon replaced all the tubing and tunneled a whole new channel for it as far away from his lungs as possible. During which he discovered that the connection between the tubing and the shunt valve was leaking and welling up CSF as he was examining it. Also his old tubing was inserted pretty high under his breastbone which often can jeopardize the integrity of the surrounding tissues; in other words, the plu...

Kinda Like 'Nam.

First off, sorry about the disjointed nature of the posting from yesterday. I was updating via text messegaing from my phone and because the service is patchy in the hospital not only were the posts chopped up but they were frequently out of order. You have to be a sleuth to figure it out. On the other hand, I guess it was a direct reflection of what we were experiencing! Between getting little bits of info and there, we had no clue what was going on. This is what we have been able to piece together since yesterday. The surgery itself was a definite success, though there were a few surprises. One of which being that when they took out Leo's shunt of 8 months they discovered that it was not working. Huh??? He never showed any symptoms of shunt failure and brain compression, so what the heck? In between the sobering list of items now holding risks for our guy, the nuero surgeon dropped this little bombshell on us. Does that ...