2009: The Year of Living Dangerously

...otherwise known as the Year of Really Scary Birthdays. In my family, we have a 50th, a 25th, a 20th, and a 16th birthday looming this year. Add me starting community college and Lyn entering her second year of college, and one of the cousins on Mom's side getting married (the first of the eighteen of us to do so)...wow. Lots of changes.

So recently I was thinking about the dreaded NYR: New Year's resolutions. Last year, I made several, and managed to complete...a few...of them. I did read 30 books in 2008 and I did push-ups and sit-ups every day through the end of March (after that things grew a bit more sporadic, to say the least), but I failed miserably in several other aspects. In view of this, I decided that this year, instead of making resolutions for the whole year, that I would make mini challenges for myself each month. Each month will have a different focus: diet, exercise, dance, writing, reading, beauty's building blocks, doing hard things, habits, and cultivating interests. (I'm focusing on writing for three months and reading for two.) Each month has different "requirements" for me to fulfill...for example, I have to read eight books each month in March and September; peform one or two random acts of kindness every day for a week during February, for the focus on beauty's building blocks (which are compassion, contentment, consistency, and the Fruits of the Spirit); do a writing prompt and write 1,000 + words every day in April, August, and November for writing; walk 20 minutes every day and exercise in other ways four times a week during July for exercise (I can hardly wait for this one!), and so forth. I've always enjoyed one-month challenges such as the ones that Brio Magazine occasionally suggests, so this should fit me pretty well.

The only downside to this is that I an the type of person who is highly motivated to get a lot done, but will either get distracted easily or overestimate the amount of time I actually have. Therefore, I almost always end up getting much less done than I would have liked, and then berating myself relentlessly afterwards. Therefore, I am cautiously optimistic about everything I'm going to try to make myself do this year. So it really is my "year of living dangerously". Wish me luck! I'm definitely going to need it...

Once We Were

We stand at the edge of the world
Where the oceans pound on the rocks
Where the water stretches endlessly
Where sand meets sea and sea meets sky
Once we were like the surf,
new and fresh all the time;
Like the sand on the shore,
plentiful beyond count,
Full of dreams that were limitless


Now we are like
a starfish missing its leg;
We lost it when we lost our
Imagination.

We stand here in the valley
Where the mountains stretch above
Where the flowers grow abundantly
Where the grass tries to touch the skies
Once we were like the sunflowers,
Rocketing skyward without bounds;
Like the peak of the highest hill,
believing we could fly,
Knowing we could achieve our goals

Now we are like
a dandelion without petals
We lost them when we lost our
Courage

We stand here in the forest
Where the trees offer shelter and canopy
Where the sun seeps through the branches
Where the moss carpets the ground
Once we were like the ants,
Never ceasing in our desires
To attain the height of dreams;
Like the animals that forage
And always find a way

Now we are like
a dead tree without branches
We lost them when we forgot how to
Dream

We stand here in the twilight
When the sun has sunk
When the lights are turned on inside
When the children come out to play
Once we played too,
Ignoring what the world thought;
Like a lighthouse in the darkness,
We were unique and new
And we were guides

Now we are like the dead of a night with no stars
We lost them when we forsook
What we believed in

Once it was spring;
there was new life,
New growth everywhere,
And anything was possible.
Once it was summer;
We were flourishing,
We were flying,
And nothing could bring us down.
And it was on the brink of autumn
That we made our choices
And we left summer behind,
Never to return.

Now we stand here in winter
When the shutters have been shut
When the snow is swiftly falling
In a new direction.
Once we were like the clouds,
Always releasing new energy
And new ideas;
We were ready to make a difference.

Now we are like
A snowflake that blends in with the rest
We failed when we lost our
Passion
We lost our strength and our drive
We are just another at the brink of eternity,
Falling swiftly towards the snow-laden ground.

We still have a choice
Once we were new; now we are old
And we have lost many things
But one thing remains:
The memory of what we once were.
Will we grasp it again?
The ground is swiftly approaching.