Word of the year: Choose

 

Last year I tossed resolutions out the window and decided to pick a word to focus my year on.  At the time I choose my word Health, I was thinking I'd exercise, eat better, deal with extra baggage etc.  WOW! did last year have different plans for this household.  We dealt with so many health issues last year that by September I found myself begging for mercy, tapping the mat, waving a white flag and shouting Uncle Remus! (My dad used to tickle me till I peed unless I would say Uncle Remus.)  Last year was like some sort of twilight zone episode only it was our life and had no bizarre noises or vacant looking people wandering around.  December closed the health saga for the most part.  And I have to say, I really don't want to think of health (or sickness) for quiet some time.

This year when I started to think of my years theme I was torn and not in the most happy place.  You may remember my last post that was slightly depressing and melancholy?  Well that's kind of how my mind has been for the past couple months.  I wouldn't say depressed or sad but I would say I have spent much time in a place of introspection.  The challenges of last year tested me in ways I have never experienced before.  They left me gasping for air and gripping my heart.  I often felt as if the entire universe was in control and I was just the pawn to move hither and yonder without so much a passing glace, tossed at sea with no life line.  You remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine dances at the party?  George calls it "a full body dry heave set to  music".  That is a very apt description of how life has felt for so many months now.

As I pondered 2013 and my hope for it I kept coming back to one single word.  One word that resonated with me, made me pause and actually take notice.  After the word started to settle in I started to see it in other places, in quotes that I save here and there, in books at just the right moment.  Clearly I found the word.  This year I want to make changes.  Not superficial changes like the size of my thighs or canning a bit more than last year but soul changes.  If there is anything the last year has taught me it's that I am not yet who I want to be.  I have this vision of my "perfect" self and while she is a bit more toned than me and sports a swimsuit without heavy medication (I kid) the most amazing part about her is that she is content and grounded and most of all positive.  Positivity is something I want back, something that in the course of the last few trying years I have handed away like a discarded shirt.  And while negativity hasn't set up house within me yet complacency has.

So this year my word is choose.  I will choose how I feel, I will choose who I spend time with, I will choose to seek every good thing I can, I will choose to kick the creeping negativity to the curb with last nights snotty tissues, I will choose happiness regardless of my bank account, waist size, of situation.  I will choose to let go of the things that hurt and choose to see and find the things that heal.  There are so many choices to make and I choose to take responsibility for all of them.

So here's to Choosing.

And just in case you somehow missed Elaine's most Awesome Dance...

http://youtu.be/5xi4O1yi6b0