My New Year's Intention

I have apparently reached an age where copious sobbing while reading books and watching TV commercials is normal.  I am not sure if it is a lack of hormone or an overabundance of the batshitcrazy hormone, but I find it happening more and more.  It makes me think of my Aunt Pat and what an unabashed TV weeper she was.  We would often stop over and find her watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie with tears streaming down her face.  As a kid I thought she was nuts, but as an adult I find myself growing misty at the thought of the Ingalls family and wish she and I could sit side by side weeping and watching.

The Apple commercial this Christmas that showed what looked like a disengaged teen on his phone during a family get together?  Apple about killed me when it showed that the kid had been filming a family movie the entire time.  Hot tears and boo hoo on that one.   Yesterday's news segment which showed women of all ages and races being courageous and brave was resonating with my inner Rosie the Riveter and I was feeling courageous and brave.   But then at the end, when they showed the woman about to have some terrible surgery dancing in the operating room and encouraging the staff to dance as well, there I was crying again.  Instant ugly cry.  Hot tears, sniffing, and all I could think, all I could say was "I am so damn blessed."

I am so damn blessed.  Aren't we all, really, in our own way?  We have had years when even though I knew we were blessed, I forgot it.  I ignored it.  I harrumphed when I was reminded of it.  I was too caught up in clinging to the life raft among the shit storm of our life that I didn't have any energy to give thanks.  (Actually it wasn't even a life raft, it was more the door from the Titanic and all five of us were huddled aboard) 

2010 for sure.

 Don't we all forget how blessed we are every day?  I know that I do.  Therefore, my new year's intention for 2014 is to remember, every day, that I am so damn blessed.  

This is so beautiful in its sentiment but I have no idea how I am going to carry that out every day. I am afraid it will be like when they hand you your baby for the first time and you see him/her and think "I am so damn blessed" but that turns into "I am so damn tired" within three or four days.    I am already thinking about Screaming Tuesdays and how hard it will be to feel blessed and not harried, hurried and mean.  I work late on Tuesdays and by the time I pick up the boy and get home, I have spent 1.25 hours in the car and we have exactly 12 minutes to eat until he needs to be at piano lessons.  I come through the door like a nightmare and am yelling at him to eat, the girls to do something, pick up something, the dogs to go away. I then get to piano and listen to him play beautiful music and reflect on my yelling and feel like a terrible person.  Should I focus on what is getting done rather than how it gets done?  Would that give me that "I'm so damn blessed" feeling rather than "I am so damn busy" neuroses?  Maybe.

I don't know how to do this, but I want to do it.  I want to walk around with my glass half-full and not worry that it is only half full and not all the way full.  I want to be so grateful for my health, my husband, my kids that I give thanks for all of them, every day and not just when commercials make me cry.  I want to encourage other people to feel the same way and if they are in the shit storm years of their life, well, I want to tell them to just hold on and be grateful later.  

So that's it.  I am not promising to lose weight, eat less, exercise more, swear less or be a better person.  I am not saying I will stop complaining or play board games instead of letting the kids watch TV.  I don't swear to make this the best year ever.  All I am going to do is to remember that I am so damn blessed.  And I am going to wear it like a pair of comfy pants and let the whole world see.