Resolved

I'm a little late on posting my resolutions for 2014.  Every time I sit down to think about what I'd like to accomplish this year, someone needs their butt wiped... or has spilled some milk... or is mad because someone else is looking at her.

But to be honest, I'm just not a big fan of the idea that I need a list of things that I need to accomplish in 12 months to make me a better person...a happier, more fulfilled, slightly less heavy person.  Look, we ALL know that there's no way I'm going to stop popping my zits, no matter how many times I end up looking like I got hit with shrapnel getting ready for work that morning.  We ALL know that I will continue to procrastinate... because at this point, it really is an art form.  We ALL know that keeping up with the laundry is for women who I simply can't be friends with.  We ALL know that I'm not going to give up chocolate or Coke or any of my many other "vices".  Because deep down?  I really don't want to.  I love my vices. 

So, no lists.  

But, that doesn't mean that I haven't been thinking about my life.  About where I am, where I thought I would be and where I want to be.  And I keep thinking of the typical resolutions and how it's so easy to get overwhelmed by lists and goals.  Please.... I know me and I know that within a couple of months, I'll forget my resolution.  Probably because the kids will be fighting and all semblance of self-control will be out the window and I'll find the nearest mirror (preferably in my own home, but it could be at Target) and start popping zits.  Resolution be damned.

The other day I ran into a woman, a Presbyterian minister, who told me that her resolution this year was to live ferociously.  Ferociously. Wow.  What can anyone say about that?  Nothing.  And you know why?  Because it's perfect.  She's out there living her life... ferociously.  And we should all take note that we, too, should be living ferociously.  If only to say: "Hi, I'm living ferociously!  And you are....?"

OMG.  That - THAT RIGHT THERE - is poetry.  In word and in action.  POETRY.  I'm a big fan of this woman already.  She took one word and has owned it.  She has let it guide her in her decision-making process and it is helping her break down walls that she had up before deciding to live ferociously. 

So, I started thinking about the one word that has kept coming up in several areas of my life lately, and I've decided to follow her example and harness the word that I can't seem to escape as my word for 2014:  Grow.

I know.  Pretty anticlimactic compared to "ferociously", but screw it... that's my word and I'm sticking to it.  

I often look at myself and see a one-dimensional being.  I can do a lot of things well, but those things all have one thing in common:  athleticism.  I can do some nice things with a basketball or a volleyball and have played both competitively.  I can swim, run and bike and have competed in enough triathlons to make me seriously question my sanity.  I can pick heavy things up and put them down, which makes me feel uber feminine.  And I can catch a dirty diaper thrown 90mph across the room with my left hand, while I stir marinara on the stove.  For the love of Pete, I even work in college athletics because that's what I know... it's what I have the skills for. 

But those are things I've been doing since I was a kid (minus the dirty diaper skill... that's a newly aquired skill).  And they come very easily to me.  The old saying if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got rings so true for me.  And in the past, I haven't dared step out of my comfort zone to try something new.  If something intrigued me, I was fine to acknowledge that I was intrigued, and then go play some volleyball.  I would blow it off as not worthy of my time or energy to try.  Because, you know, I might not be good at it.  I might fail.  I might fall so hard on my face that it leaves an indent in the floor.  And for me... failure is not an option. Ever.  

No more.

In 2014, I'm going to be open to any and everything.  I'm going to reach.  I'm stepping outside my "normal" and not letting fear stop me.  How can I tell my daughters to grow and try something new... if I won't?  They see that.  They see everything.  They know that I only do the things that make me comfortable... where there's no room for growth.  And I have a healthy suspicion that that is why they won't eat their broccoli.

To that end, I've been asked to perform a reading in the Good Company Theater's production of The Vagina Monologues this month. All proceeds go directly to the YCC.  If you are interested in tickets, go to the Good Company Theater's site.  The show runs February 20-23, and I am in the Friday/Sunday cast.  I'm so honored and proud to be a part of something that empowers women and does so much good for our community.This is so far outside my comfort zone that I'm not sure we're even in the same galaxy.  And falling on your face in front of a room full of friends and/or strangers... well, you know what they say:  Go hard or go home.  I'm going hard.

Grow.

I read this article today and it spoke to my soul.  Especially these two quotes: 

Most of us become mothers before we become ourselves. We don't grow into our minds, hearts or bodies until our 30s when we've already been parenting for years.

I feel like I'm failing as a mother most of the time and I'm not succeeding as myself either.

 I could have written those words. I should have written those words.  For years, I have been subconsciously fighting a... well, a calling.  For some reason, I have found it unacceptable to acknowledge that I want to write... that I think I have important things to say.  I read too many blogs and question whether or not my voice matters.  I have made excuses as to why I haven't been writing: writers block, don't have enough time, don't want our friends to see how crazy I really am, no one cares what I have to say or what I think, how can I compete with all of those amazing women writing blogs?  But, in the last few months, a few friends and the man that I sleep with have been prodding me to make a decision on this little hobby of mine.  Fish or cut bait, as Benny would say.

Grow.
 

I have never thought about writing as a career... but maybe I should.  Stranger things have happened, so why should I limit myself?  To that end, I'm going to say out loud - for the first time ever - my dream truth.  

I'm a writer.   

Grow.  

I'm making a personal commitment here and now to dedicate more time to my craft... my passion.  Who knows what it will bring?  Maybe nothing.  But I am finally acknowledging that I never will know unless I put my neck out there and...

Grow.