Skip to main content

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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hate the struggles, don't hate Autism.

Its 7 pm. Your child is yelling his head off because he does not want to hop in his bath. Tears are running down his face leaving clear trails in all the grime. Bribes have been offered. Voices raised in despair.  Visual schedules and timers have failed to move him. He does not want to have a bath and that is it. You're exhausted and stunned by the intensity of his tantrum. Unfortunately you cannot budge and you cannot give in because you're scared that it will set a precedent : Mom's a pushover.  But you also know that this tired little boy is soon approaching meltdown junction, where all bets are off and nobody wins. You take deep breaths and tell yourself its not about you right now! How do you help him navigate this ? He loves bath time. He loves water. He'd practically stay at the pool if you'd let him. So why is it suddenly so hard for him?  Why does this bright boy who can do math in his head and talk at length about how to build an airplane st...
Post a Comment
Read more

20 perfect kernels of popcorn.

Button has always been a picky eater. No.... scratch that. How about super-sensitive-and-guaranteed-to-refuse-any-new-foods. That's a much better description. It's not just an autism thing. Part of it is probably the sensory defensiveness that comes under the autism umbrella and part of is it anxiety about new tastes and textures. I mean - this kid hasn't eaten candy in his entire life!! Could care less about ice cream or pizza! I know, I know - he sounds like an ideal 6 year old who only eats healthy stuff, but man, this is way worse than that. He accepts 6 foods and that's the 6 food choices he's been sticking to for the past 4 years. Its a constant cycle of dosa-pasta-rice-pretzels-chips-fries. So no....not healthy by any means. And his dislike of non preferred foods is so strong, that he will actually gag at us eating a meal. Its that bad! Eating at restaurants means taking his meal along with us and he's that one kid at the party that's eating his ...
1 comment
Read more

Groucho Marx

Today I'm feeling like lists, so here goes. Things that really annoy me : People who brag about how little sleep they got - we get it! Coworkers, cashiers, random people you run into. Somehow this is meant to convey a sense of superpower : "I slept for just 2 hours and look how functional I am". Well, I got news for you! I see all the surreptitious yawns you think you're hiding and I've seen corpses look fresher, so here's your damn medal. Now shut up about sleep! Not-so-obvious racists : See these jerks are worse than overt racists because you can never spot them coming. You're standing in line at the grocery checkout, and you get this weird vibe coming off Cashier Susan who's quick to smile and greet every white customer. But when it's my turn, Cashier Susan will grunt a non committal sound, lose the chirpy eye contact and rush through the process, before smiling widely at the blonde lady next in line. I've seen Cashier Susan fo...
Post a Comment
Read more