oh-leven [2011]

I have a seriously screwy love/hate relationship with transitions. On the one hand, I am reeeeeally bad at them. Not my forté in any sense of the word. But in theory, I think they are delightful. Which is why I like the idea of New Year's resolutions. I like the idea that one year ends and a new one starts, and that in said new year I can do new things. I can make new choices and meet new people and be new myself, somehow. I like that. I think it's hopeful and sometimes when things are full of yuck it's nice to get to a new year where there is a possibility of less yuck. I mean goodness, along that same line of thought I even sometimes like Mondays. New weeks when old ones weren't great. Yes, technically, any day or even minute can have the same effect, I recognize this. But there is something neat and clean about a Monday transition. And even more neat and clean is a new year. Oh-leven. New and neat and clean. 

Given my natural bent toward irrationality, I can tend to put too much stock in that, though, and I never want to put too much pressure on something silly like a change of date. Because really, it's just a different day. Things may not change much, in reality, and not even in a bad way. More in a just-because-we-write-a-different-year-on-our-checks-doesn't-mean-our-lives-are-dramatically-altered kind of way. Seems logical.

Which is why I really don't like resolutions. In theory, delightful, but in practice, potentially disastrous. In the past I have viewed it as much like saying, "Hey, I have an idea - let's make a list of things I probably won't do this year, so that when the year is over, I have an actual, pre-written, physical checklist of reasons I suck." Perhaps a little dramatic, sure, but my point is NYR's can go one way or the other. That said, I went back just now and read my blog from New Years LAST year, and I am unexpectedly thrilled. I did not plan this. I swear to you. Check it: 

[in 2010] I will be freer, generally speaking.

Direct excerpt from my "Christmas Card" this year. Check it:

Despite the fact that life is not perfect, that I still don't have a job and I am still in transition and I still have a ton to figure out, I feel thankful to reach the end of 2010 and tell you... I am free-er than I have ever been.

And you know I didn't plan that, because if I had, I would have spelled free-er/freer the same both times. (The difference is driving me a little nuts actually. I would say I am uptight about a total of 3-5 things total in my entire life but one of them is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, spelling.) I am acutely aware as I read those words (all spelling issues aside) that there was no resolution I could have made to make that happen for myself.

My hope for us in oh-leven is pretty simple. I want to learn how to do free better. I want to do new things and make new choices and meet new people and live newly. I want to do more of the things that delight me, like investing in wonderful people, singing karaoke in my living room, and wearing red lipstick and crazy nail polish. Probably I will try to find a job and go to the gym more or read more books too, let's be honest. I'm not completely above resolutions. But mostly I want to enjoy the gift I have already been given and try to live from there. I want to rest in the truth and power of Jesus and live out of that, because that's the only place I've ever found freedom. I want to take risks, and I will only take risks if I am free. I've started practicing (it's hard and hurts a little, I will not lie to you, and I can't say yet that I love that) but I want to get better at it. 

Making freedom the goal for 2010 wasn't a resolution, it was a prayer. 
And I'm not achieving it, it's being given to me. 

happy New Year & happy Monday & happy 1:19 pm. Newness all around. Let's pray and take risks and be free and new. What do you say?