Resolutions

Before I turned a year old, this picture was taken of me. If I look closely, I can still see the person I am today in that face. Mama had lovingly combed my hair in the baby style of the day, and I was obviously well fed and happy. Sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been if I had not believed that the entire world adored me and would protect me from any harm, because of the enormous outpouring of love I received from my doting parents and extended family.

I've learned that every seven years not one part of your body remains the same; everything is eventually replaced by new cells, even down to your bones, which are alive and continue to grow during your entire life. So who is that little person, really? Is it me? How do our memories and sense of self continue on through our lives? I know some people who say they can remember crawling and beginning to walk (although I have no memory of such things). Life is truly a mystery. That little person has now been reconstituted almost ten times, if you think about it.

But it's still me. And now as I begin a new year, along with all my friends and family, I've been pondering the need to make some resolutions. I'm sure that little baby had no need for them, but I sure do. There is always something that I feel needs to grow and change within me so that I can become a better person, and resolving to change something that needs changing is what some of us do at the beginning of a new year. This auspicious year, filled with ones and elevens, seems especially appropriate for thinking of changing a way of being in the world. I've decided to make my New Year's Resolution to be one word that I can bring into many aspects of my life: Mindfulness.

Being mindful means becoming aware or conscious of different aspects of my life. I have decided that the first step is to become more mindful of how I eat my food, sitting down and actually having a meal instead of making a hurried sandwich and gobbling it down while in front of the TV or computer. This should help me lose a pound or two, since I know that food is much more nourishing to body and soul when you pay attention to what you are eating. I'll try not to beat myself up too much if I don't adhere to this every day, but mindful attention is what I'm looking to achieve.

I want to be mindful of my blessings. The loss of my friend Emily so suddenly really knocked me for a loop, making me realize anew how precious life is, reminding me to be thankful in this moment for my partner and my family. My extended family, you, are also very important to me and provide the intellectual stimulation that would be missing from my life without you, without blogging, without the community of like-minded souls whose lives I share every day.

The idea of a one-word resolution comes from one of my blogging friends who chose the word "shed" last year and rid herself of many parts of her life that had become cumbersome. This year she chose "nourish" as a reminder to give herself the things that help her to grow in the ways she would like. It is so easy for me to drift along from day to day, following the same patterns of my daily life without conscious thought. I'd like to nourish my soul and maybe help others along the way.

It's easy to decide on a resolution but not so easy to figure out how to put it into practice. One way to begin is to state the intention, which I'm doing here, and then think of a concrete step  I can take every day to remind me (such as sitting down at the table for every meal), and then take it slow and steady. It takes about a month to change a habit, so the first few weeks will take some effort, but it should not be difficult to take small steps forward.

As I sit here in the dark, before the sun comes up on the second day of the new year, I look around the room at the environment I've created for myself: a laptop warming me as I sit propped up in bed, my partner softly breathing beside me, a cup of hot tea within arm's reach, a tapestry on the wall across from me that I brought back from some long-ago visit to a foreign country. A pervasive sense of peace steals across me. Gratitude is not hard to find in my life, but paying attention to it, becoming mindful of the present moment, is my resolution for the coming year.