one word

I had such grand plans for the first week on 2009. I had blog posts a plenty rattling around my brain. It's amazing what a house full of flu can wipe away.

Daniela over at Rubber Soul mentioned an idea for New Year's Resolutions. A single word.

If there was one word for what I want for myself this year it's Strength.

Too many times, too many moments of my life have been stunted by doubt. Too many times I have given in to fear. Enough. I want strength. Strength to be who I know I can be, who I want to be, who my family needs me to be, who I must be if I am to break free from what has been.

This being me though, I can't stop at just one, and since I'd already carved out other ideas...some other words I want are:

read ~ I sometimes stop short of reading something I really want to read. I'm not sure why, or how this got started, but it's been this way as long as I can remember. I feel paralyzed by it. Every time I do push past it, I'm blown away at the world that meets me on the page or computer screen. This year, I want to read freely. I have stacks of books and blogs aplenty waiting to be with me.

connect ~ I avoid connection too. Again, it's fairly out of my hands as I sabotage relationships routinely without knowing I'm doing it until it's too late. This one I understand. I have trust issues. I pick the wrong people to be friends with and get hurt. I'm not good at reading people. All of them seem scary to me. But the one thing I have learned last year, in spite of loosing yet another friend to unforeseen ugliness, is that there are some really amazing people in the world who are kind and patient with me, who love me or love my work, and can be trusted. Here is where I need to be fearless, while cautious.

celebrate ~ Many of the creative goddesses I follow on Flickr are very good at recording celebrations of all kinds, from daily life to major holidays. I don't know how to do this. I want to. I'm open to ideas here because I'm just throwing this one into the universe and hoping that being open to what comes will be enough, for now.

cook ~ This has a lot to do with celebrating, I think. I cook. But, I don't take the kind of pride in it that I see other creative women taking. I do it because I have to and I don't necessarily think it will become a passion, but to be truly involved, to be present and invested, I think will be divine.

be ~ The simplest of things, the hardest to remember. Just be.. and just be in the being. Mindfulness, it's salvation

love ~ I want to love better the people in my life who stand by me, who work with me through all of my struggles. I want to use words that tell of my love instead of betraying it.

make ~ I want to make more and buy less. I want, also, to make more of what I already have and buy less. I want to create, not just digitally, but materially. There's magic in making I think.

do ~ I want to do more and sit less. I want to be involved and show my son how to be involved in life, and not just watch it pass by, spectator like.

move ~ I want to live in my body more, and use it while I can. I want to open doors instead of waiting for electric doors to open for me. I want to walk instead of ride. I want to lift instead of ask for help. I want to run upstairs for sock instead of settling for cold feet. I want to do yoga again. I want to be friends with my body again.