All Is Grace

warning: parenthesis to follow. many of them. if you and i are friends, you know i talk in parenthesis as much as i write in them, so none of this will come as a shock to you. but just in case you stumbled upon my blog randomly…consider yourself warned.

a really (really, really) long time ago, i was in college.

i would come home mid-December on break and i would spend that month-long holiday stuck between thought processes. that’s what a break between semesters does to you, really. between all the sleeping in you can cram into 30 days, all of the “oh, my gosh, i have no money to go out and actually do anything” conversations with friends in similar predicaments, and the panicked shopping (with no cash) for meaningful Christmas gifts for family members…of course you spend your downtime thinking about the courses you just finished and the upcoming classes you’ll enter the next semester.

actually, you don’t really think about either of those things. at all. you’re done with the previous semester, and you don’t even have syllabi in your hands for the coming semester…you enjoy a blissful state of ignorance, and your weary brain empties itself of all things academic in sheer relief for a blessed month.

but i did sit during my (frequent) downtime and think. i did the classic “what are my New Years’ Resolutions?” every December 31st or somewhere close to that, about the middle of break, and i would drag out my current journal for the year (which, generally hadn’t been touched in a couple of months, or since my most recent romantic crisis), and i would read back through the pitiful entries of my sadness or desperation or bleak hopelessness, or maybe happy ranting or jubilant celebration or peaceful quiet… (yes, i really was that all-over-the-place)(frankly, i still am. we all are, aren’t we?)

(don’t burst my bubble here, folks).

even back then i knew the bleak statistics regarding resolutions (why do we hear these every end-of-December and act all shocked? like we haven’t heard it all before? jeez, i knew my resolutions were likely to fail by mid-January 20 years ago. wake up, people. this is not morning-show-newsworthy anymore.)(oh, and how awesome is it to be reminded of our inevitable failings every year??), but i still sat down and thought through the things i would like to change about my life. my lists usually looked like this:

“1. Lose 15 pounds.
2. Exercise every day.
3. Read bible every day.
4. Get up at 5:30am on weekdays.
5. Write papers/do homework when assigned (procrastination ends now!).
6. Drink 8 glasses of water a day.
7. Stop eating junk food!
8. Go to bed earlier.
9. ….. ”

you get my point. i mean, it’s all the classics on that list.

lots of great stuff. good goals. sadly, when it came right down to it, the classic outcome is exactly what happened. a few of them lasted until…maybe February. but not many. and i did this year after year. after year.

after year.

it was like pounding my head against the proverbial wall. doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

hey, we know i’m insane. but this was ridiculous.

over time, i made the loud declaration that i was done with resolutions. that i would never make them again. i wasn’t kidding. i stopped. cold turkey. living with that kind of disappointment/failure wasn’t good for me. quitting that cycle had to be better. i found some relief there. the first year i DIDN’T make resolutions went pretty well. i got a chuckle out of listening to my friends’ failures because i was like, “duh. stop making them. this will stop happening!”

but a year later, i found myself in January looking for something different. like…i got to the end of each year and realized…i needed a challenge. i like challenges. the new year is just a great time for challenges because you get a fresh start. new year, new number, new challenge. so i stopped calling them resolutions and started calling them challenges.

guess what?

same result. more head-banging. more failure. more feeling-like-crap-because-i-can’t-do-what-i-said-i-really-wanted-to-do.

you know what i realized along the way? something i haven’t perfected. something that will take the rest of my life to even make a dent in.

i am my own worst critic. i suck at giving myself grace, even when making small goals for myself that don’t involve anyone else. at all.

the moment i fail at something–that first week i don’t get a workout in every day, the first morning i wake up after 5:30, the first day i have a snack after dinner–it is all over. i failed, my failure overtook any progress i had made, and i might as well throw in the towel on the whole list of resolutions/challenges. or i would valiantly attempt to get it right the next day, and the day after that…but the next time i couldn’t hit that goal, it all came crashing down. i couldn’t pick up and move on because i saw it as ultimate failure. and interestingly, so many of my resolutions depended upon each other (weight loss = exercise + eating well + getting up early to work out + getting enough sleep + drinking more water) that i couldn’t make it all come together if one or two weren’t working properly.

failure is debilitating.

but grace…grace is freeing.

i’m sitting down this afternoon and i’m making some lists. actually, i started them over the weekend. i started a new workout program before the first of the year with this very idea in mind: get a plan in place before the new year. get action in place to make that plan happen. these are not resolutions…they are goals. specific ones. with action plans. and it just happens to be the new year when they are happening.

and the action plans have built-in grace. they’re not excuses or “ways out.” but opportunities to get back in if i fail.

and i’ll fail. i always do.

but there’s my word. again.

Grace.

giving it and receiving it.

Happy New Year to me. (and to you too)

(ditch the resolutions, friends. give yourself some grace. find a little peace in the new year that isn’t based upon your ability to keep an arbitrary, unrealistic list of resolutions. if you want something to happen…pick a goal and take some action. then do it again tomorrow. and if you fail, let it go. try again the next day. decide if it’s still important. move. on.)

(and tell me what you picked. i’d love to hear.)