Resolutions and New Calendars: Happy New Year!

What I’d really like to do today is to hole up and work on some projects that I have been putting off by denying I have time for them. I’d like to turn off everything and just do these projects.  Well, maybe a little music playing in the background.

What I will really do today is a combination of a number of things, none of which will probably be done as well as I want them to be done.  Isn’t that the way for many of us on many of our days?  We can get up as early as we can – stay up later than we’d prefer, and still our most mundane (cleaning the bathroom) or most treasured (organizing heirloom family photos) projects or plans don’t exactly get done.  And, then, the next day we must face the ongoingness of tasks and projects.  Sometimes they pile up and sometimes they collect dust and occasionally they get done.

The same is true of New Year’s resolutions.  You know what they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.  A number of my Face Book friends have begun their new year’s workouts today.  Some writer friends have begun some kind of writing project goal – 1000 words a day – that sort of thing.  These are all people of integrity, and people who are goal-oriented, and who may very well achieve their goals.  I am not among them today.

I’m sitting at a dining room table that is covered with paints, college application essays, a hope to get some things done today, a Harry Potter book, calendars, a poetry journal and other miscellany, not having gone to the gym; and, my plan for the day is outlined on a reused yellow post-it note with scribbles – the last item on it says “get organized.”

Isn’t that how much of life is? Unorganized but somehow we make it.  Even when we buy new calendars, sort out what we want to happen, make plans, and get it all together, those plans get shot to hell.  Life happens outside the door while we hide and make our plans.  So many moving parts.  So many unpredictabilities.

And, that’s what makes things interesting and either challenges us or defeats us.  I’m pleased for everyone who has gotten a jump on resolutions today; I’m in the same boat with those of you who are saying, “When is New Year’s again?” and debating whether the tree stays up or gets taken out today.

And, for all of us, may I suggest penciling those plans into that new calendar?  You just never know when you might need to sit and hold hands with a friend; when you may have to deal with an ant infestation; when you may opt to talk to your teenager instead of taking Zumba class.  Frightening things may get scrawled across your calendar in black Sharpie.  Colorful doodles may take precedence over the carefully penciled in details.  And, no matter our motivation and energy levels, we will need some days to be totally blank. 

So many moving parts. 

So many unpredictabilities. 

So much joy.

Happy New Year!