New Years Aspirations- repost
what are yours? I 'd love to hear about them
(It seems that when I posted this earlier today, I limited comments to paid subscribers, which was not my intention. I’d love to hear from folks about their experiences/practices around resolutions!)
For 20 years our family and another, who live a distance away, got together every New Year’s Eve.
We’d do the same things every year. Eat good food. Hear each other’s stories. Laugh or console as appropriate. Bang on pots and pans as we sang Auld Lang Syne. Take the annual family photos.
It’s a joy to flip through those pictures in sequence. Remember that saggy old couch? Remember that hair cut? Remember when I had hair? Like a stop action movie, we see kids growing to young adulthood, and the older folks, like the furniture, losing some of their springiness.
Somewhere along the way we began sharing resolutions and recording them.
Every year my friend David resolves to walk more. It’s a noble and healthy notion, and we always wish him the best. We love David’s capacity to laugh at himself.
We don’t hold each other accountable. That feels a little judgy amongst friends who’ve learned life doesn’t always go along with even the best laid plans.
It really doesn’t.
This is the second year in a row we haven’t been able to gather in person. Life happens. Aging parents need care. Things change at work. Adult children build busy lives, and acquire partners.
We learned to Zoom that one year during COVID, so that’s how we’ve been doing it.
We meet online, on New Year’s Day. The families on couches in their own homes. It’s still good to check in, and to hear the resolutions.
Last year I resolved to run 1000 miles on the basement treadmill. Even as I said it, I wondered. My wife gave me the “really?” look, but I stuck with the pledge.
At year’s end the mile count was 649, which is not nothing! (It’s a little over 1000 kilometres.) I tell everybody I’ve decided it’s about time I went metric.
One New Year’s Eve I resolved to write a mystery novel. It took all of that year, and three more, but I did it. Now I’m working on a couple more in a series.
One of the all-time best resolutions was Gordon’s plan to walk the dog every day. He announced this 6 months before his parents actually agreed to adopt a puppy. Sometimes, resolutions are aspirational. Gordon put it out there, and his family, and the universe responded.
Hearing last year’s resolutions, naming our new ones, is part of how we check in. It’s good to get a sense of the general direction of the lives of those we love. Flipping through the notes from previous years feels like a different kind of stop action movie, that gives a glimpse into each other’s hopes and dreams.
I’d love to hear about yours.