It feels like a lifetime since I’ve put pen to paper and scribbled down anything at all, really. But over the last few weeks spent growing out my hair, unrolling my yoga mat in a hot and humid studio every other day, re-assessing my priorities and figuring out where I truly belong - I might even be feeling better than I have in years. Every December writing resolutions for the new year is one of my very favourite things, but deep down inside me I knew this year had to be different than all the others. So whether this entry matches all of the words preceding it, and whether it makes any sense — — — I decided to write and share my reminders, rather than resolutions, for 2 0 1 5 :
i. Don’t forget, through every other emotion - your family will be there for you in the end, if not before or during the deluge. That’s a pretty safe bet and if I were you, I wouldn’t take those odds for granted.
ii. Don’t forget, “if you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not.”
iii. Don’t forget, with a head and a heart and a conscience, that you’re just as important as everybody else.
iv. Don’t forget what Annie Dillard said : “There are 1, 198, 500, 000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply it by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it.”
v. Don’t forget, “Beginning is easy - Continuing is hard.”
I’ll never forget that one time I actually did my weekly readings for a class ; POLS2105 or something like that. Genocide Post-1945. I read what Annie Dillard said and it changed just about everything. Before that I was shy out of shame and self-deprecation, not out of some kind of strange humility that reminded me of every other beating heart in the world that might need more attention than me. For many things there are reasons behind them and you should try to understand before you come to your own conclusions. And for the reasonless other things you simply need to accept everybody else for their differences and decisions. I can’t forget that. For disappointment is one of my primary weaknesses. Disappointment in others precipitates disappointment in myself, and if not for apathy and detachment - I don’t know how I would make it through each and every day. But what needs to change this year is replacing indifference for a surrender to my own shortcomings.
Writing this I am reminded of the Serenity Prayer and perhaps if I should forget everything, I should not forget this :
"God, give me grace to accept with serenity,
"God, give me grace to accept with serenity,
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
And the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other."
because “For every ailment under the sun There is a remedy, or there is none ; If there be one, try to find it; If there be none, never mind it.”And with those words in mind, and a mini trip over-the-sea to look forward to, I think this year is going to turn out exactly as it should. Because while I can’t yet sincerely abolish all of the dreams and desires that make me a human being, I can reassure myself that what is real is the intention to be better. Not whether or not I had the strength or courage to be.
"
How selfish it is
to crave
someone
to crave
someone
like they were
yours
to miss at all.
" — Michelle K., But I Am Selfish.
Love,
A
