New Year's Resolutions

It is that time of year again when I feel guilt about making resolutions that my history tells me I will not keep and guilt about not making any at all. During this take down the tree and vacuum time, it seems there is more to be swept up than left-over needles. All the stores advertise file cabinets, folders and other trappings for getting one's life in order. So it only makes sense that I would make resolutions, putting all the things I want to change about myself into neat little file folders on the top of my to-do pile.

I struggle with the word "resolution". It has the connotation of rigidity, of finding something about myself that causes me negativity and guilt and through grit and determination, excising it from my life and/or my being. I cringe about failing at it, at adding one more failure to my resume of self-worth. Even though I read, and the TV programs tell me, that the majority of people fail at keeping resolutions I struggle to not make it a personal failure. Resolutions feel constricting, a claustrophobic box full of hard surfaces and sharp corners. No wonder one would want out of them in as short a time as possible.

This year I have decided to eliminate the word "resolution" from my vocabulary and instead focus on New Year's "intention". Intention is a much softer, friendlier word, directed in a forward motion rather than an act of going backward to see what I have screwed up and feel compelled to change. While there are many things about myself I would like to change, I will instead move in the direction of living with intention. I don't know quite where that will take me but I think I kind of like that not knowing. In a week, I may feel differently.

In the meantime, without doing the normal resolution planning, I have discovered this week that my creativity has marched right up to the front of the line. I signed up for a weekend writing retreat on the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan;I enrolled in a three week "try me" watercolor class;and I started this blog. It will be interesting to see if all those other unmentionable and unattained resolutions from years past will take notice, pick up their instruments and join in the parade.

dlk