Each year I try and come up with a few (dozen) New Year's resolutions, and every year I fail miserably when trying to follow them. Maybe it's because I know that 7 million other people are making the same exact ones (eat healthier, exercise more, yell at the kids less). I don't know. The point is that this year I am only going to make one resolution: no regrets. I have spent so many years regretting almost every decision I have made and I realize this is a giant waste of my time. No matter what choice I made I always figured that it was the wrong one, that maybe the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Then I worry and complain and whine because yet again I didn't get my way (when in fact, that's exactly what I got).
I came up with this resolution a few nights ago when a friend asked me and my husband out for New Years Eve. I had to decline because of the kids and I began to reminisce about what it was like before I had kids. When M was first born I was too scared to ever think that way. M was our little miracle baby after a bunch of mishaps so it felt almost blasphemous to feel tired and simply need a break. Once O came along though, the weight of working full time and having two tiny kids really did start to take its toll and I began to remember what it felt like to sleep in, eat whenever/whatever I wanted, drive out to the beach on a moments notice, pick up and move to a different state, go out with friends when they invited...
I started to think where I would be if I hadn't had kids. Would I be teaching english in Chile? Would I have joined the Peace Corps? Would I be getting my Ph.D? All these little thoughts begin to creep into my sub conscience and I start to feel jilted, like I would be so much happier and better off if I had waited for a few more years and really done these wonderful, un-kid friendly things.
And then O looks at me a cracks up and M comes over to give me a snuggle and I realize had I become that person, running around the world doing all these wonderful things, what I would be thinking is how wonderful I bet my life would be if I had children to share it with.
Here's to no regrets in 2012.
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