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New Year, Old me.

TEARS. I’m glad for them. Tears means there is love. Your daughter’s tears when she doesn’t get one more story before bedtime. Your son’s voluminous eyes glinting because he heard about your overnight trip. Love for companionship, love for family, love for doing something meaningful/meaningless with people you care about.
ANGER. When your husband snaps at you because you’re scrolling on your phone instead of snuggling with him in bed. The exasperation that comes from missed conversations and tired parenting. Irritation with a friend who keeps canceling, your child annoying you with a 30 minute “joke”. Acknowledge this anger fully and appreciate what it symbolizes. It keeps you on your toes and reminds you about the important bits of your life. The parts that are worth getting worked up about. The people who will always hold your heart in their hands.
I’m thankful for UNKINDNESS. Unkindness reminds you to inspect how you interact with people. A rude comment, a mean act - these teach you to look into yourself and be the bigger person. To value those who always show you compassion. And to pick kindness the next time you have a choice.
MISTAKES. Remorse for choices made, words said. You could feel badly about your past. That’s one way to do it. But instead you could be proud that your life is so richly studded with so many missteps and misadventures. You’d be a boring person if your existence was a straight line of good deeds and happy moments. A few bumps in the road make everything more appealing, don’t they? Me, personally? I have learned to cherish my blunders and use them as teachable moments rather than memories to be blocked. Worst case, when I grow old, I’ll have a few interesting tales to delight my grandkids with.
For a long time, I thought a new year should bring only joy and success. Everything upsetting about the past 12 months should disappear and Jan 1 meant: BOOM! Positivity and perfection all around, Yo!!
All the negative emotions mentioned above, scared me. Those were signs of failure in my eyes. Shameful sentiments, symptoms of a flawed person. A loser.
Well, I’m wiser now. You could even call me *gasp* mature!
So this year, I will cherish everything that happens. Happy and Sad. Kind and Angry. Hateful and love filled. Every one of those sentiments means someone somewhere feels strongly about me. Or I cared enough to hurt/get hurt. Either way, it shows me I am alive and human and lucky to be here.
What’s the point of this long-winded message, you ask?
Simple. For me 2019 is about HOPE.
Hope that I can appreciate all the awesomeness that life throws at me.
Hope that I make glorious, horrible mistakes and learn from everyone.
And HOPE, that I can do better tomorrow than I did today.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

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