I’m sitting by the fire in my pajamas at 11:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. Everyone is either sleeping or gone. A tinge of wistful sadness settles in with the quieting of the house as I look back over the course of this year. There is a sense of finality with the passing of 2016—another year gone, completely unretrievable. My oldest son will soon be driving, we have no more babies in our home, and I am quickly approaching my fortieth birthday. Time passes like a hurricane through my raking fingers, and I am left gasping and grasping after something that refuses to be caught.
But my sadness is not over the passing of time nor upcoming teenagers or mid-life (as I look forward to both). Instead, it is over how I have failed to encapsulate and cherish every moment of the last year. I grieve the times irritability presided over gratitude. I regret every moment I rushed through and missed the moments that will never be recovered. I especially and deeply mourn every unkind and impatient word I’ve wasted on my children (and there have been many).
In my mind, I so badly want to suck the marrow out of life and savor every last bit, and yet, I so often fail.
I recognize the irony. Being New Year’s Eve and all, it would make perfect sense to set a resolution. But honestly, I adamantly refuse. I know I’ll make the same mistakes. I will fail again and again.
However, lest I be mistaken for a brooding pessimist, allow me to clarify.
In my humble opinion, this cycle is, in fact, the very essence of life and one I believe to be exceedingly beautiful. Is not life a compilation of moments—heartaches and joys, peaks and valleys, tragedies and triumphs? Yet, when standing nose to nose with our own lives, the successes and failures are not always so readily apparent. How often do our darkest moments lead to our most significant breakthroughs while our imagined victories lead to our demise?
This is why I refuse to set New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I commit to doing the same thing day in and day out, year after year. I resolve to accept defeat and success with gratitude, knowing that both change and shape me. I resolve to put my best foot forward every morning, recognizing that my best may look different from one day to the next. I resolve to accept the snow and the sludge, the sun and the sunburn, the rain and the flood–although I will undoubtedly fail to gracefully do so. Ultimately, I resolve to struggle continuously—to fall and get back up and fall and rise once more.
It might take me a while to find my feet again, but I’ll get there. Eventually.
For, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, only in the struggle are we strengthened and transformed.
