New Year Musings

So in the spirit of the New Year I have been spending the past few days pondering about resolutions I want to make.  I will need to admit that over the last few new years I have not really made an effort to decide that I was going to change anything.  I have always wanted to, but I never really know where to start.  I guess I started thinking about it late cause I still don’t have a “list” together.  But my wonderings have brought on some more of the serious talks and thoughts.

In discussing this with my husband and realizing that I have not been very good at completing goals (more likely than not because I am pretty bad at setting them) I allowed myself to dig deep inside to try and figure out why.  Have I always been bad at goal keeping?  Or is it a rarely newer phenomenon in my life?  I think, “Hey I used to be really good at accomplishing things!”  So why do I have such a hard time now?

I guess I am good at excuses, I am good at starting something and then get in the throws of it and come up with why I can’t continue.  So I thought about that for a good half a day and allowed myself to be disappointed at my constant excuses as to why I can’t.  This newfound honesty with myself led me to think deeper, dig back farther to see if I can’t figure out where the excuses started. 

Going WAY back, when I was little (before age 10) I did dance for a bit.  I liked it and remember liking ballet and tap especially (the woman that taught us taught us everything).  I am not sure how old I was when I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore.  I don’t even remember why I asked to stop, but I quit right before a huge production they did of the Wizard of Oz.  Four of my siblings also performed and it was awesome.  I remember feeling sad when they were doing the big rehearsals so mom made it so that I got to be one of the little kids having the story read to so I was a part of it, but I wasn’t dancing.  Years later when I was in high school and wishing I could dance better I would always ask my mom why she let me quit…she never could say either.  I guess I was insistent.

Another time in my growing up years I was learning to play piano.  The teacher I started with taught the Suzuki method (I think that is what it was called) where you first teach the kids by ear and then introduce the note reading.  The teacher had a baby and had to quit before I learned to read notes.  My mom found me another piano teacher (an extremely good he-records-his-music-for-a-living pianist I might add).  He wanted me to learn to read music and play that way, not by ear.  It was hard and I got frustrated that it wasn’t as easy for me so after a short while I gave up.

There are a few other times in my growing up that I gave up on something cause it wasn’t as easy as I thought it should be (mainly guitar and clarinet), in order to really learn I was going to have to work at it.  I want to insert here that for a while through my teenage years I harbored frustration at my mom for letting me quit.  I have since realized that she let me make a choice and I am the one living with the consequences and I don’t hold her responsible at all.

In talking this over in my mind I came to the conclusion that I ended up quitting every time something wasn’t easy or completely natural for me.  I was always a good student, but I never learned how to study, to work for a grade.   I was that student that some hated cause all I really needed to do was be in class, take notes and I would mostly get A’s.  I am a natural test taker, I get nervous and stuff, but I can make sense of things on the test and fudge my way through correctly if I don’t fully know the material.  When I went to Uruguay on my mission I understood the Spanish pretty much as soon as I was in country, I didn’t have to struggle like most do for months before they can understand what is being said.

So does this mean that I am never going to be able to do things that are too hard for me?  Am I always going to quit once it is tough and only keep moving forward on things that are easy for me?  I would like to put out there a resounding no.  In furthering my contemplations and realizing that in the past I have given up when it got hard, and since marriage I have given up on many new goals because they were hard, I have not given up on two things that are extremely hard: being a wife and mother.

Marriage isn’t easy, living in “the real world” with someone where we have to think about finances and housing and where to buy food and what to eat and how best to keep our relationship fired up is not easy, but it is SO worth it.  Everyday I tell my husband I love him and even though some days I don’t feel it as strongly as others I do love him dearly and I am so grateful to have him. 

Being a mother is a goal I have had in my life, but I must admit I was never that girl in high school that LOVED babysitting or was always grabbing everyone else’s babies to hold.   Because of this there are times that I find being a mom extremely difficult.  But I hold MY babies dear and close and love them oh so much!  I have to admit I am a good mom because I have FANTASTIC children.  They are so wonderful, part of it is just cause they are great, but part of it is because I am doing something right with them.  I am just exactly the kind of mom they need. 

So what does this have to do with new years resolutions?  I think that over the years I have been letting the difficulties of being a wife and mother drown all other abilities to do anything else difficult for me.  I have not had anything left in the tank so to speak to fight any other battles.  I have “coasted” through life up until this point quitting anything once it gets hard and then when I don’t stop being mommy and loving wife I almost have no idea how to try to do anything else.

My hope is that because I have realized this that the rebellious me, the one who likes to be unique and different, can look at this as a challenge.  Time to pull out the big guns and prove to myself that I can set goals and do something else that is hard and unnatural.  Cause if I can stick to it, the more I work on it the easier it will become.  I can make the change.  With that in mind what do I want to tackle this year?  I need to be realistic.  With another child coming in August I have some limitations.  I can’t do the “lose 80 pounds” or “do that half-ironman” like I had last year.

How about this year I work on a feeling?  I have a friend who shared that she likes to have a theme for the year, one word.  I really like that.  I feel like my word this year will be: embrace.  I need to embrace who I am now, embrace who I want to become, embrace every opportunity for good, embrace my family as much as possible, embrace my life.