New Year Resolutions

It’s been a tradition in my family to make New Year’s resolutions every year on January 1st.

I remember being a small girl, with a HUGE white piece of poster-board paper.  I would lay on the floor and think hard about all the things I wanted to do differently in the coming year.  And over the course of some time, I would write them all down on the poster-board, and tape them to the back of my bedroom door.  Whenever my door was closed, I could see it from inside and think about the list.    After a while, the list would go unnoticed.  And the items would drop from my mind.    Until…. January 1st again.  

Being many years older, you would think that the tradition has changed.  However, in many ways it has not.  

Every year on January 1st I sit at my computer, and start typing a list.  It can take me a few days of modifying it, removing items, adding items, mulling it all over.  But a list is made and finalized.    It is then printed out, and instead of posting it on my bedroom door, it sits on my desk….all year long.   Yes, it’s often at the bottom of a pile.  Sometimes it’s moved to a cubby.  Sometimes it’s put in a drawer.  But at least once a month I come across the list and read it … am I stacking up against my expectations?   Well, maybe not, but at least I am trying.

So here we are at January 1st again.   Here I am with 2007’s list.  And here I have realized that most of my resolutions have nothing to do with me as an individual… as a person of my own right.    Most of my resolutions have to do with me as Mom:  

Don’t talk negative around the kids
Help foster independence in the boys
Keep my feelings in control so that the kids are in control
Be friendly not angry in my firmness & discipline - use humor to help
Love & accept the children’s differences
Find a good time for Nathan & I to talk about adult things without the boys around
Be a better and more active listener
Work on patience

All of these resolutions I have tried to do, and still I find that they are good ones to add to the list again for 2008.

The only resolutions on my 2007 directed only towards me included:

One day a week put pictures in the photo albums at their naps
Go to the gym more regularly
Do ironing weekly so it doesn’t build up
Keep within budget - cut back in x,y, z areas.
Stop associating with people that have a negative impact on my family & my life

Hummm…. did I keep those?  Well, yeah…. the ironing & the avoiding mean people … I guess I did those.   But really most of those were on the list because they were good for the family or a means to self-improvement.

I look back on the 2007 list and think, where am I on that list?   Was there anything I was really passionate about?  Any dream that I wanted to pursue?   

This year in 2008, I am going to try to set some goals that are just for me … not as a ‘mom’, or as a ‘wife’, or even as a way for self-betterment.  Sure those things are important.  And those things will still be on the list.   But I think that sometimes Mom and Wife can make Michelle feel like she comes in a distant 3rd.   That is part of the job… but maybe this year, Michelle will have to start making resolutions just for herself.    It might have took 35 years to figure that out, but now is as good of a time as ever.

My first resolution is to hire a babysitter not just so I can go to a doctor’s apt, or get my haircut…. but just to do something that I would like to do as a woman and person.   Who knows what I will do, but I am sure going to try to find out!