I'm having a hard time fully embracing 2011. How about you? Maybe it's that Christmas is still all around me, begging to be put back in a box. Maybe it's because I no longer buy a new wall calendar that requires me to break cellophane, opening a crisp first month of January.
I actually think it's because marking time is very important to me. I haven't ceremoniously ended 2010. I tried. I packed up my family and headed to our local diner for breakfast with a tote bag full of construction paper, glue, scissors and markers. My big idea: starting a family tradition over new year's breakfast of making a scrapbook celebrating the highlights of the past year. Go ahead and chuckle. It's okay. I'm not sure why I thought my arts and craft project would win out over a stack of six pancakes and a view of the football game just past my left shoulder.
So after returning home and dissembling my tote bag I realized that this is a personal exercise. One that means a lot to me and doesn't require a team. It's the same desire that creates my stacks of photographs, old birthday cards I can't quite throw out, and the report cards that haven't made it into the school year scrapbooks.
It's a desire to fully honor the passage of time in my life. To wrap my arms around all of the small joys that stack up into a good year. To see the moments of growth in my own life that came from the ups and the downs. Even to give myself a report card: A for Effort. B for Being Kind to Myself. C+ in Sleep.
It's an exercise in gratitude. And being present . . . retroactively. Catching the essence of 2010 before it leaves my short term memory and shifting into the New Year with grace, trusting that we are unfolding as we should, with blessings waiting to be received.
I actually think it's because marking time is very important to me. I haven't ceremoniously ended 2010. I tried. I packed up my family and headed to our local diner for breakfast with a tote bag full of construction paper, glue, scissors and markers. My big idea: starting a family tradition over new year's breakfast of making a scrapbook celebrating the highlights of the past year. Go ahead and chuckle. It's okay. I'm not sure why I thought my arts and craft project would win out over a stack of six pancakes and a view of the football game just past my left shoulder.
So after returning home and dissembling my tote bag I realized that this is a personal exercise. One that means a lot to me and doesn't require a team. It's the same desire that creates my stacks of photographs, old birthday cards I can't quite throw out, and the report cards that haven't made it into the school year scrapbooks.
It's a desire to fully honor the passage of time in my life. To wrap my arms around all of the small joys that stack up into a good year. To see the moments of growth in my own life that came from the ups and the downs. Even to give myself a report card: A for Effort. B for Being Kind to Myself. C+ in Sleep.
It's an exercise in gratitude. And being present . . . retroactively. Catching the essence of 2010 before it leaves my short term memory and shifting into the New Year with grace, trusting that we are unfolding as we should, with blessings waiting to be received.
RSS Feed
