By Mary…
“You can choose to blame your circumstances on fate or bad luck or bad choices. Or you can fight back. The rest of your life is being shaped right now. The choices you make and the person you decide to be. The rest of your life is a long time and the rest of your life starts right now.”
Quote from One Tree Hill
Happy New Year!
I am so happy that year 2011 is over and I say this with all the conviction I have in me. I’m not one to put much into new year resolutions but I did make two last year. One was to take back my life. Somewhere in the middle of being a wife, mother, problem solver, studying, endless loads of laundry and dishes (teenagers…UGH!), broken bones, football practices, school dances, etc., I kind of got lost in the shuffle. I became so engrossed with fixing everyone else’s problems that I lost sight of who I am and what I want out of life.
So instead of dwelling on the many “resolutions” that I could make with the start of this new year, I’m going to share a couple lessons that I learned over this past year.
Recently, I was reminded of an event in my life that had a profound effect on me. One that I had forgotten about and one that I regret forgetting about. Just a few days ago, I lost my temper at my youngest son. He looked at me with absolute sincerity in his eyes and asked, “Why are you always so mad?” I stood there feeling like someone had just thrown a bucket of ice cold water on me.
Hearing these words echo around in my head is what sparked the memory I swore I would never forget. Around 8 or 9 years ago, when the kids were just toddlers, I was busy doing all the mundane chores of the day, when he came running in back door yelling “Mommy”! I snapped at him with a curt “What do you want? Mommy’s busy.” and I never even turned around. He softly said, “Nothing”, and went to his room. That night, I went to tuck him and turn on the night light. As I sat down on the edge of his bed, I stepped on something and thought, “Good Lord….what has he drug into the house now?” As I picked the unknown object up off the floor, tears instantly burned in my eyes, as I held a little bunch of wilted flowers in my hands. He looked up at me and whispered, “I picked them for you but you were busy.” I had never felt so unworthy as a parent as I did in that moment until just the other day.
Lesson 1 – Don’t ever loose sight of what is truly important.
We’ve all been asked if you could take back one day, which one would it be. For me, it would be Friday, November 26, 2010, the day before my best friend died. As usual for everybody at that time of year, I was running around doing the whole “Thanksgiving” thing…parties, family dinners, cooking, etc. In my hurry to get everything done, I physically drove past Gina’s house twice that day – once on the way to pick up my son from a friend’s house and again on the way back. He even asked me why I didn’t stop. My answer being that Gina had a house full of company and we had already made plans for next week. Besides we had to get home, pick up the food and get to Grandma’s house for dinner. There wasn’t enough time to stop that day. Gina died of a brain aneurysm Saturday morning.
A little over a year has passed since she died and there has been very few days that I don’t think about what I did. I know that I will never get that day back. Regret is a very hard thing to live with and if there is one thing I can pass on about this experience, it is to make time to do the things that matter. You may not get a tomorrow, next week or even next year.
Lesson 2 – Forgiveness is divine but forgiving yourself is healing.
I’ve come to realize that with everything we deal with on a daily basis, marriage, job, children, money, etc., that life doesn’t have to be this hard and there are times we make it harder on ourselves. So this new year’s resolution is basically a continuation from last year. I’m taking back my life. I’m coming to realize the things that are good for me and the ones that are not, knowing the difference and letting go of the ones that are pulling me down. So as I said good-bye to 2011, I’m closing that part of my life that is no longer good for me and looking forward to a new start. I will leave you all with one additional quote…
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. and it’s yours.”
Quote from One Tree Hill
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