Off to a Rocky Start But Not Too Late for a Fresh Chance

Morning Coffee and a New Year's Mind Map

Kids Like a Fresh Start Too

There are two things I love. Clarity and the chance for a fresh start.

Clarity can take many forms, for example a recent ex with a new girl friend. Or, the obvious overbooking of the holiday season. Or, when the child is off the rails. Or. . .

...actually feeling the broken tip of your tailbone. On New Year's Day I got the year off to a rocky start. . . ha ha ha. I broke my tailbone. Me, the snow, a tube, and my very own landscaping rock. Whose idea was it to put a rock there anyway? Bill concurs that the bone feels broken and wasn't that a romantic moment?

Clarity is good, I hate it when things are grey. Like my mom being in the hospital for four days with the doctors kinda shaking their heads and ordering five millions tests to scare us and then ultimately landing upon a diagnosis of viral pneumonia. Poor Janel. She spent the latter half of the Fall preparing food for our visit and decorating her house for Christmas and we spent the better part of our visit eating hospital food with a loud and strange roommate at the University of Iowa Hospital.

So here's to 2016. A fresh chance.

In spite of the rocky start, I do love a new year. I spend the actual day (for me this was 1/3/2016) listening to Oleta Adams and letting in the deep meloncholy of the passing of time and the putting away the Christmas tree and thinking about the kids getting older and our folks getting older and actually everyone getting older and shed a couple tears on that account and come across a couple photos of my dad and my grandparents and listen to a couple more sad songs. Bill and I used to call it "mope fest" in college.

But then, really, it's time to recommit. To everything. My family. My studio. My church. My piano teacher organizations. My health. And my limitations. The tailbone is helping with that.

It starts with some simple no's. No, we can't go to the library after school today. We have to get into a routine. It starts with some new charts. Then we can move onto the bigger picture of being mindful of what we do. That's might include some bigger no's down the road. That is clear. I love clarity. But it's gonna take some time to clear the board.

When Calvin was little, and like all children, he would go off the rails, we would send him to his room, ocasionally kicking and screaming but always in a funk. Ten minutes later I would go visit him and he would be back to his very best self.  Ready for a fresh start.

Everyday a fresh chance.
Happy New Year!