Feeling a bit relaxed today, I found myself clicking through through my some of my old poems and stumbled across this one written last New Year’s. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. 2007 has certainly unfolded itself in ways unimaginable but joyfully spectacular.
The last couple of months have been an odd blur. Not the usual face-paced movement of the sun that we all complain about as New Years rolls around. This feels different. Unexplainable. But then again I feel different. I am different. I’m no longer the overly-structured clean freak I once was. I have hobbies and aspirations that don’t hold a promise of making money. My house is even slightly unorganized (I think I just heard my mom gasp). I don’t care about arriving early for the event or making first impressions. And I find it fantastic that my child doesn’t follow orders!
Oh reading all that – especially the last one – just made me laugh. That’s another change. I laugh more. I also watch TV and spend less time in front of my computer (did you know I use to spend no less than 12 hours a day on the computer?!). And I have a new haircut that makes me look more like I feel – my client put it best when she said “It doesn’t make you look young; you are young. It makes you look…spunky.” Lookie here! I’m spunky!
I think 2007 is my favorite year. Only to be topped by 2008. I use to hate resolutions. They seemed arbitrary and unfulfilling if done simply because the calendar changes. But now I see it not as something I “should do”, but more of a way to move my life forward.
Last year I “gave up” soda. This year I’m focusing on gaining, not giving up. Knowledge (learning to play harmonica, sew, knit), experience (trying new things, going new places) and forgetting all the rules (but one). Yes, even the rules I’ve set for myself.
I have lived within my chosen parameters for so long, constantly reminding myself what I want to do and not do. Say/eat/do this, don’t say/eat/do that. I realized that I often worry so much about doing things “right” that I fail to do much at all. I try to be the perfect parent, instead of just being there and having fun. I try to eat the perfect food, instead of just listening to my body and :gasp: occasionally indulging in total trash (or pork). Almost every decision I’ve made recently has been earmarked with too much damn forethought.
So as odd as it sounds, I’m going to stop thinking so much. Oh, I’m sure I’ll still gonna live up to my “Organic Sister” name, and I’m sure I’ll still always be improving myself. But it just won’t be my primary focus. My primary focus is just to live and have fun and throw convention out the window and knock societal obligations on its butt. Like Miranda said, I’m going to widen my box a bit. I don’t want to live inside an unschooling label, a health nut label, a neurotic label. I just wanna live.
Oh and that “one rule” that I mentioned up there: Love. That’s it. That is the only parameter I’m holding myself within. If it’s not loving or I don’t love it, I’m not doing it. It feels like another step into “letting go”. Sheesh, what more is there to let go of?
My name is Tara. I am a mama and a lover, a full-time nomad, a passionate devourer of Life and an Organic Life Coach.
[...] 2007 was about Letting Go and Trusting. It was the year I sold my business, the year we embraced unschooling, the year my perspective as a parent changed for the better. It was also the year I lost my dad. And really started to find myself. I think it will always feel like the year my life – my authentic life – started. [...]