The Anti-Resolutionista

I've decided to make a grand total of ZERO New Year's Resolutions this year.

This is not because I'm lazy. It's because I'm ready to settle into something normal. The past year I worked really hard to maintain at work, adjust to a new city, support my husband in his incredibly stressful job search, conceive, deliver and care for a child, and deal with a very challenging housing situation. The year before, we moved to a new city, suffered two miscarriages, and I lost 30 lbs. The year before that, I achieved and adjusted to a promotion at work and traveled to a foreign country. I'm feeling kind of tired. I think making resolutions this year would be somewhat of a false enterprise: I would make them, not really care about them, and feel like I had no credibility with myself.

Instead I will continue trying to do all the things I have wanted to do all along - be a good wife, mother, daughter and sister, take opportunities to help people in need, live healthfully, and leave the world a better place than I found it. I know that sounds cheesy and generic. I also know I don't really have a plan to do these things.

But instead of making myself miserable by "vowing to blog more" or "losing 40 lbs" or starting off determined that "this is the year I will ...." I am going to try to treat 2011 as a continuation of my 2010, 2009, 2008-and-further-back-goals.

I accomplished a mother lode of stuff in 2010. Our family accomplished a mother lode of stuff in 2010.

2011 will just be a year of striving, as gracefully and happily as I can, to live well.