A New Year, A Clean Slate with all sorts of room for improvement.

Once upon a time, I was a single girl.  A single girl with a great shoe collection and many excuses to actually wear them.  A girl who stayed busy with work and school, had somewhat of a disposable income, a great social life and a best friend named Jason. 

Jason was like a platonic soul mate.  For a couple of years, we were inseparable.  We were each others rock, shoulder to cry on and each other’s therapists.  There were a couple times when Jason would show up at my house between 2-3am on a cold winter’s night and want to go to Tim Hortons for a hot chocolate and to talk.  At first I was always mad that he had woken me up to drag my pajama’ed butt out into the way-too-cold Canadian night.  But looking back, those nights are some of my fondest memories of us. 

Another great memory was our annual year-in-review/ next-year’s-improvement Chinese food dinner.  I think we did this 4 years in a row.  Just before going our separate ways for Christmas holidays, we would go to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants, sit and talk and eat for hours, discussing our successes and failures from the year and divulge what we wanted to achieve or do differently in the upcoming year.  We would support each other, plan how we would help each other and hold ourselves as well as each other accountable for the things we wanted to accomplish and for the things we wished to avoid. 

I have thought about Jason all of December as I reflected on my year and plotted and schemed for a better 2011.  Our friendship has faded since 2005 through distance, relationships and lifestyle changes.  But my love and respect and fondness of him has never waivered.  He was one of those friends who made me a better person.  He pushed me to be better, encouraged me to be bolder and taught me so much about life and the gospel- lessons I could never repay him for.  My young adult years would have a dark, lonely void if he had not been a part of my life.  Thank God for that man. 

So with the memories of fried rice, wontons and ginger chicken dancing in my head, I will share with you my two themes for 2011.

2011 in a word- PEACE.

 My life has lacked a certain peace to it for several years now.  With the joys of becoming a wife and mother, so comes unavoidable stresses.  I have yet to learn how to effectively deal and manage that stress and have paid the consequences thereof, even to the point of being physically affected.  And I cannot live like that any more. 

So I am going to simplify. I have already given up multi-tasking.  I am going to work on staying in the present moment.  I am going to whisper more, yell less.  I will detach from the situation when there is no point in stressing or reacting to it.  Because if my son is throwing a fit, my feeling stressed and frustrated will not change his behavior.  I will take the time to stop and recharge during the day.  I will give myself a 15 minute time out to read and calm down when I need it.  I will validate myself and will not feel the need to live up to any expectation except my own, and have simplified and edited my own expectations.  I will quit my day at a decent hour, treating my household duties like a fulltime job and clock out in the evening.  I will take the time to unwind and do something for myself so that I may regain the peaceful, satisfying sleep habits I once had.  I will love and accept myself enough so that my own soul may be at peace.

2011 in a phrase- I have a choice. 

I usually just give my years a word but this phrase kept coming back to me over and over and so I decided to add a phrase category this year and I think it’s a good one.  I have a choice. 

I think sometimes we are too quick to forget that we are all in charge of our own lives and we all have a choice.  Everything I do during the day, I make the choice. 

I have the choice to be stressed or relaxed. 

I have the choice to eat well or poorly. 

I have the choice to make exercise a priority or to continue to neglect and abuse my body. 

I have the choice to feel frustrated or to step back from the situation and emotionally detach where I have no control over it. 

I have the choice to put an effort into my marriage and my relationship with my husband or I have the choice to continue existing in a non-satisfactory relationship. 

I have the choice to place an importance in having a social life and spending time with friends or choosing to spend yet another night watching tv. 

 I have the choice to stay positive or be pessimistic. 

 I have the choice to teach myself new talents, skills or hobbies or continue spending my ‘off’ hours on social networks, watching tv or other mindless, time-wasting activities of no value. 

 I have the choice to put in the hard work to teach my kids valuable skills, habits and manners or I have the choice to do just the bare minimum with the idea that someone else will teach them what they need to know.  I have the choice to break bad habits and replace them with new and better ones or I choose to continue neglecting or abusing myself.  I make the choice. 

I have the choice to create my own reality. 

I have a choice to make this year better than the last.  I have a choice to make myself a better person than I was last year.  I have the choice. 

And so with the dropping of the ball the slate is wiped clean and everything becomes possible once again.  Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.  So let's go, 2011- I'm ready for you. 

Love ya, Jase.  This egg roll's for you.