I love fresh starts: springtime, birthdays, the turning of a new year. January always gives me a feeling of limitless possibility, as well as a craving for inward-turning, reflection, the chance to take stock of where I’ve been and where I want to go. I rang in the New Year this year with a grateful heart, filled to bursting with amazement at everything that has come into my life in the last twelve months: A new home, a true medical miracle, a tiny life kicking and growing inside me. This time last year, I could not have imagined the wealth of happinesses that 2012 would bring. Now, in retrospect, I am awed.
As the weeks of December ticked by, I found myself thinking about my hopes and dreams for the new year. I am a lover of goals and a maker of resolutions; I love having things to bring structure and order to my life, and ideals to strive for. Since high school, I’ve faithfully set resolutions and chosen themes to focus on for each new year, and many times I’ve seen my life change in profound ways as a result.
Still, as I pondered on 2013, I felt stumped. What could I resolve to do in a year that would bring so much change, so many unknowns? While this year is still young, my husband and I will be welcoming a newborn into our lives, adding a completely new element into our otherwise familiar existence. Could I really make resolutions when I had no idea what this year would bring?
Could I ask anything more of myself than simply to be there, living and breathing the new adventures that 2013 brings?
I just want this to be a year of drinking deep, I found myself thinking. I don’t want to miss a second; I don’t want to get to the end and regret the times I wasn’t present for the moments that counted.
And that, in the end, sums up my sole resolution for this new year:
Drink deep.
Be there, wherever “there” may be.
Give myself a little grace when I inevitably fall short.
Let go of a few of those things on my to-do list.
Cherish these last weeks of pregnancy, and cherish the hectic newborn weeks to come afterward.
Let myself be filled with love for my new little daughter—this soul that stands on the cusp of this world—and let go of less important things.
I don’t know, here on the threshold of the coming year, what 2013 will bring. Like most years, I imagine it will carry its share of pain along with the joys, and I’m sure that keeping my temper and equilibrium after one too many nights spent soothing a newborn will be a challenge. There will probably be moments of exhaustion, of bleary-eyed apathy, of downright frustration.
But there will be so many moments of beauty, too.
And I don’t want to miss a single one.