“My New Year’s resolution is to stop hanging out with people who ask me about my New Year’s resolutions”. Author unknown

It’s New Year’s Day 2015.  If I was Michael Buble I would be singing his hit “Feeling Good”

Birds flying high
You know how I feel
Sun in the sky
You know how I feel
Breeze driftin’ on by
You know how I feel
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day
It’s a new life
For me
And I’m feeling good

But alas I am not him.   But I am determined not to be a “Debbie Downer” and squelch the good out of the first day of twenty-fifteen.   I am not going to lie.  Last year had highs and some lows.  I wish I was more of a excel spread sheet list-maker like my husband and children so I  could look back objectively and see if I hit the milestones and adjust the plan and look to the future.  I try incredibly hard to look at the bright side of life but more often than not I look back and see my mistakes and failures instead of the good stuff that happened.  It’s a flaw and it keeps me humble but it also rain clouds my memories.  I am currently at my ninth revision of this blog and all I see are the mistakes.  It’s not funny enough, engaging enough, deep enough, informative enough… you get it.  So, when I look back on 2014 I see that I was not enough.  That kind of feeling inhibits me from being hopeful that 2015 will be any different.

If I look back objectively ( hard for me to do) I know at lot of good happened.  I started volunteering at the hospital in the heart failure clinic.  It’s a far cry from taking care of newborns as I did eons ago but it makes me feel useful and appreciated to help out.   We drove to North Carolina and flew there once and found a community that we would like to retire to some day.  ( And on the road trip we did not kill each other – good times).  We had a lot of good times with family and friends that are like family at Cape Cod and made good memories. 

My blogging went full steam ahead when we went on our trip to Portugal and Spain where we made new friends and saw new places and had a wonderful time.

And we closed out the year with a family trip to the most magical memory making place on earth.

With my loves.

The things I have done and the places I have been and most importantly the people I love have helped to shape me into who I am.  For 2015 I’m going to trust my feelings more.  Not to be naive but believe more in myself, in spite of the fact that it is easier to believe in others than myself.

As Dr. Seuss says in “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”

“You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

You’re on your own.

And you know what you know.

And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go”

In my mental bucket list – not one of those these are the things I need to do before I die, but of things I would like to do that I think will make me happier (and healthier) are some of the following:

Blog more often.   Writing down my thoughts and feelings helps me to put my inner me on paper and “out there”   It’s hard work but it is rewarding work most times.  Sometimes it’s scary and feedback or lack there of can be a bit much but no risk no reward.

Be happy and accept that I deserve “more” as much as anyone else.   More good days, although in hindsight there were plenty.  More good memories made, and again there were many.  More days without worry, more days full of laughter and less full of fear.  I think when I entered 2014 I was afraid, kind of filled with a feeling of dread, waiting for the bad to happen.  And when the bad that I feared so much did not happen it kind of overshadowed fully enjoying the good that was happening.

Neil Patrick Harris said “I’m probably my biggest critic.  I worry that if you spend any quality time reveling in good things then karma will slap you upside the head, so I try to stay as even keel as I’m able.”

I’m going to try and embrace 2015.  It’s going to be a very good year.  I feel it in my bones, in my gut and in my heart.  Some of the things I want in my bucket are to smile more, laugh more, hug more, yoga more, workout more, spend more time with friends and family, take more pictures (even if that seems impossible), sing more, blog more, earn more Pesos, volunteer more, make more memories, and love others and myself more.  (The last may be the most difficult).   But I am up for the challenge.

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.'” 

Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Happy 2015 my friends.  You are loved.

Teddy – Best dog ever I miss him

Frankie

Harry