New Year, Same You?

I know you have heard it. We all have. It’s a New Year, time for a New You. But wait just a minute! Some of us are pretty happy with the old us. We have worked hard to make peace with past struggles, put out our fire breathing dragons, find balance and harmony in a world that is often out of balance.

No, we certainly aren’t perfect or even finished, but we have worked on ourselves. We did not reach the ‘older’ years or even adulthood without finding time, internal strength and personal honesty and integrity to build some contentment, ease, pleasure, satisfaction and yes even fulfillment in our lives, our relationships and even in our faults and struggles.

Life is so about the journey and not the destination. So, all New Years, with their do over’s, resolutions and fresh starts are a gift for certain. They are like a fresh new page waiting for you to write your story. But don’t kid yourself. Some chapters of that story are already written. Knowing yourself, your faults, your strengths and many weaknesses and still finding that happy spot within yourself where it is well and you are too is also a gift.

Maturity brings some acceptance, a sense of self, and a balance of criticism and tolerance of imperfections in ourselves and our others whom we love. And I don’t know about you, but I do not want to have a new me. It took me a long time to accept the old me, to learn how to manage my blemishes and blunders, to find a grudging appreciation with a touch of awe and wonder at just how fearfully and wonderfully and even durably I am made. I am forgiven and have forgiven myself for a multitude of shortcomings, sins and failures, I have survived a surplus of losses, ends and closures, and have triumphed through tragedy and even calamity.

I have memories and blessed forgetfulness of events and happenings both real and perceived and time has softened the edges and blurred the lines of some of the tougher ones. I have scars and marks of crashes and climbs and each one represents either a proud accomplishment or an earned recovery. I have good friends and guardian angels who have added to who I am and gained from our shared journey. So, the old me, while just a sinner forgiven, is pretty great. I think I will keep her one more year at least. I hope to add to her in some new and positive ways, take away some of the fluff and stuff that adds nothing positive to her. And I intend to be grateful and delightedly aware of not only how far I have come but excitedly expectant of just how far I still have to go.
Happy New Year Old Girl!