Dare I Call Them Resolutions? Reflections on the P-Words

Or should I just tell myself they are changes I want to make? Somehow my life has gotten off track and isn't quite where I thought it would be now. Yes, I know, you can change any time you want, not just because an arbitrary calendar date rolls over to the next in the sequence, determined by a long-dead pope hundreds of years ago. But tearing the page off, unwrapping that new calendar, all its empty dates waiting to be filled in, so full of promise, everyone full of plans and resolutions--makes me feel like palpable change is in the air. It's a new year--anything is possible.

My sister wrote about focus as her theme for the year on her blog. That would be a good one for me, since goodness knows, I ended last year feeling completely worn out. I, the captain of my own destiny, queen of my castle, who has always been in charge of her own life, made her own decisions, been responsible for everything, had control wrested from me. Things happened I couldn't control, couldn't change, couldn't bend to my will.

And I didn't like it.

2011 left me feeling lost and frazzled and uncentered. So I will recenter myself in 2012. My resolutions center on the letter 'P.'  Patience. Planning. Proactive. Productive. Be positive. Then I looked at my 2010 resolutions, hanging inside the medicine cabinet door, and guess what I read? "Be positive." Gave me pause, that. Have I been wallowing in negativity that long? Then I remembered it was fall 2009 when I lost my beloved George, and I had some trying projects at work. The same problems (darn, another p-word) beset me in 2011 (yes, a certain federal agency, I am pointing my finger--yes, a p-word!--at you!) with re: to a terrible project at the end of the year that sapped all my love for my job, and the death of my beloved Pupgirl and the illness of Sweet Little Miss. Too much bad, not enough good.

I'm sliding "waste not" in there, too, because that's always a good goal. And re-center.  R is near P and therefore can be considered part of the goal.

But, 2012--Positive. Productive. Possibilities. Yup, p-words are good.

The boys have their own human-imposed resolution: behave.