I Resolute To Not Resolute.
I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. Sorry, people. I just don’t get em and don’t even want to try. To each his/her own, I say!
However, I’ve gotten to thinking (sometimes, this hurts my head)…
… and this is coincidentally happening right at the beginning of a new year, so please don’t mistake my upcoming thoughts as a “resolution” …
Life is short - this we all know. I recognize the beauty and luck I have found in my husband and my daughter. We are happy. We are healthy. We are loved. In that sense, we have everything.
I’m not exactly working my dream job, we don’t live in our dream home (or even our own home) and I’m not wearing my dream wardrobe. These things I can cope with. Again, we are happy, healthy and loved.
When my daughter was born, I felt ugly, disgusting and all around gross as I started out my pregnancy at a WHOPPING 125 lbs (and if you asked me if I thought I was thin I would have said, “no way”. Pa-thetic!) and grew to 175 lbs and looked like Violet - after blowing up to blueberry status - in Willy Wonka. Of course, I refused to get in pictures or let my family take my picture because of how NOT beautiful I felt. I am now left with the burning regret of not having many pictures with my sweet little girl -the absolutely DIVINE tiny human who grew inside of me - because why? Because I wasn’t feeling up to it?! How insanely selfish, foolish and ridiculous of me! Those moments have already flown by and I am now left waking up to a gorgeous little girl that can sit up (still wobbly) on her own and has filled out into the cutest, cheekiest little almost-six-month-old!
I remind myself that she is still so little and that my regret can hopefully be fixed beginning today. I can take more pictures now. I can capture our trio on camera now. I will take a million pictures. I will video tape EVERYTHING - whether I feel foolish, look foolish, sound foolish… doesn’t matter.
One day, she will be big. I mean TRULY big. In fact, she will probably be taller than me because I am only 5’3” - but that’s another story for another day… Anyway, she will be older. She will be busy. We will hopefully have more children. Things will get in the way. I will be older. My husband will be older. OR (and I really hate to think of these things) we may not be around. These concepts are nothing to joke about. LIFE.IS.SHORT. Days, week, months and years are fleeting. We have to learn how to embrace these moments even if they seem mundane. One day, we are going to wish we had these moments back and if there are no pictures or videos documenting these times, we will only have our memories (and mine seems to be going already!).
So… I hereby VOW (not resolute) to get snap happy and still-frame (or video tape) the moments that we see rapidly running before us. We will take vacations on whatever scraps of cash we can manage to save. We will throw birthday parties like they are going out of style. We will live in the moment. And I will not allow myself to be so silly again. What will feel like soon, my wrinkly self will wish I was back to my smooth-skinned, plumpy self anyway!
