New year, same issues. New day, more grace.

As I admitted moments ago in the modern day confessional we call Twitter: "Kids are all sleeping. I should be writing but ate 1/4 of a pumpkin pie instead. I find this depressing."

So, in an effort to not be depressing, here I am. Writing.

A new year has begun. The proverbial slate is clean. The possibilities are endless. So why do I still feel uninspired?

Actually, that is not entirely true. I feel inspiration trying to take root. The problem is that it is hidden away under layers of regret, exhaustion, busyness, and general life clutter. Sprinkle a little fear and some apathy on top and you've got the perfect recipe for inaction.

I've been feeling this a lot lately, this loss of the capacity to be creative, to think deeply, to do something other than things. This ought to be the perfect time to make a long list of resolutions, to rally the troops of my best goals and intentions and declare to the world with feigned confidence all of the things I'll do differently this time around. Instead, I'm just going to... not.  I know it works for a lot of wonderful people out there, but the truth is that the adrenaline rush of my New Year's list-making always crashes and burns about a month or two in. Then a year or so later I'll inevitably find the forgotten list tucked away inside a book (that I most likely never got around to finishing), and I am discouraged all over again.

So today, in the middle of the non-list-making, non-word-writing, disgustingly rapid consumption of the aforementioned pumpkin pie, I made a decision. Two of them.

1. I will pray for my husband and each of my children, by name, every day of the year.
2. I will cut myself some slack, for crying out loud.* **

Call them resolutions if you must, but I believe these are more like tools of survival.

I cannot tell you the shame I feel to confess that the sun has set on days where I have not brought my precious children, each of them intentionally and by name, to the only one who loves them perfectly. It is true that I've become the master of the one-word prayer (like "Help!" "Patience!" and, most often said in relation to potty training and/or naptime, "Pleeeease"). But this is no substitue for stopping and - with at least a nanosecond to gather my thoughts - attempting to articulate what I long to see God do for this child or this man. Of the hundred tiny things I do for them each day, the single most important is the one I often push aside. It is with a clenched jaw and a trembling lip (okay, fine - it is with resolve) that I say, NO MORE.

Item #2 is a decision dedicated to sanity - for me, for my husband, for our marriage, for our family. The secret, erroneous expectations I have for myself as a mother, wife, daughter & friend do no one any favors. They bleed over onto those around me and we all end up feeling hurt and confused and defeated, when the battle was imaginary to begin with. I don't expect to identify and oust these lies all at once, but I can start to pay attention. I can silence them little by little. And that is something. (Something, I might add, that does not require a gym membership or a babysitter or the willpower of a saint.)

Today, I'm thankful that new beginnings happen regardless of the date on the calendar.

I'm thankful that fresh starts do not depend on my resolve.

And even though I may wake up tomorrow and fail miserably at the only two items on my list, I'm thankful that I don't have to wait a year for the grace to try again.

*The placement of the comma is key here. The slack is not for crying out loud. It is "slack, for crying out loud."
**Come to think of it, the first way is also appropriate.