Dear 2017,
I’ve never really set a resolution before. I just like to set small, achievable, measurable goals. It sounds more attainable to me, so I’ve never felt the need to make a resolution. However, I need to ask something of you, 2017: If you could just slow down for a minute and not go by as fast as 2016, that’d be great.

You see, last year was the fastest time has ever gone by in my life. I had my second baby, lost my job, got a new job, started a blog, and began a new crazy schedule working full-time with very different hours than I was used to (I worked part-time from home before). It has been a bit of a roller coaster, but I feel that the year was overall very good to me and it all worked out for the best. However, it has flown by at an unspeakable rate. It’s very hard to fathom the fact that my baby will now be turning one in a couple of weeks. I feel like I blinked, and suddenly, here we are.

I’m going to be real with you for a minute, 2017. I wished for your arrival. I couldn’t wait to see you. You see, 2016 was great, but it was full of sleepless nights, being married to my breast pump, learning new daily routes to get to my job (thanks to a long commute), and did I mention no sleep? I feel like I barely saw my husband at all because we were both so busy trying to figure out the new schedule and each tending to one of the kids in a sort of tag team situation.

See, I thought if I saw 2017, these problems would be gone. We’d sleep better because the baby wouldn’t be so little anymore. I’d be done nursing him and I’d have my body back to myself (and not have to spend half a day pumping at work anymore). I’d learn tricks for the commute by this time. We’d be super used to our new schedule and I’d have it all figured out. I guess I just didn’t realize at the time all the things that I’d be wishing away.

I’ll never hold my own newborn baby again. Ryan was our second and final child, and my days of holding a teeny, tiny swaddled baby are over. I’m still nursing him, but those days are also numbered. I could NOT wait to be away from this breastpump after a year. But now I know it’s going away forever. And I definitely don’t have any more clarity to nailing down the “perfect” schedule although that’s partially my fault, but also because our days are a little different than others in being married to a firefighter. He has a crazy schedule all his own (working 24-hour shifts every third day). It has all really made me think – how much of my life have I really already wished away?

As a kid, I couldn’t wait to grow up and be independent. I couldn’t wait to get to high school. I was so ready to be finished with college and get my career going. What did I miss? Well, maybe I missed out on having more fun. I joined the real world quickly and when you have to support yourself, all you want to do is go back in time because you didn’t realize how good you had it at home with the parents.

And then you meet “the one”. And you can’t wait to get engaged. Then married. And then you want babies. And when babies don’t come as quickly as you had hoped and you spend all of your time worried about when the babies will come, then you forget that you’re still in fact, married, and that you’ve lost out on quality time with your love because years of worry have passed by. It’s not a time I’m proud of, and I’m beyond thrilled with our lives now, but I should have appreciated our alone time much more than I did, before life with our beautiful children got so busy.

And then, the baby #1 came and grew up in a New York minute. She was tiny, and then she was 5 years old. And I kept wishing for things to get easier, and they would when she was more independent. And now she is, and she’s perfect, but she’ll never be little again.

So, 2017, now that I have two little ones that are growing up more rapidly than I could have ever dreamed, what shall I do now? I suppose I better slow down. I better take a breath. And while sometimes I know that I will be rushing to work, I’ll be anxious to get home, I’ll be hurrying to get something done, I also know that I need to stop sometimes. I need to look around. I’ve got to play more and worry less. I need to stop wishing for the future and living in the now.

Don’t get me wrong – goals are good. But I need to stop thinking that “things will be better when ___”. “I will be happier when _____.” No more of that. The fact is that the moments that we are living in RIGHT NOW will make up our memories later, and that’s all we will have left – memories.

I don’t want to look back thinking I wished it all away. The key to happiness isn’t a goal that can be measured or reached. It’s a state of being that we can choose to live in or not to live in, starting right now. There’s no expiration date. Life will always be challenging. It won’t always go smoothly. Sometimes we’ll wish for things to get better – that’s okay. But we can’t live always waiting for better things to come. If you change your attitude, then things will immediately be better. It’s all about perspective. I have to remember that.

I looked up the actual definition of the word in the dictionary:
resolution: a firm decision to do or not to do something.

Well hell, I guess I’ve been doing this thing all wrong. It’s not just about reachable goals. It’s a state of being. I guess I’ve just made my first resolution. It starts with you, 2017: I choose happiness. This phase of life might not be easy with little ones and being a working mom and scheduling and chaos, but it’s damn good. I’ve been chosen to be the mom of two kids in a wonderful family of four. It’s time that I’m more present – for my kids, my husband and myself.

Cheers to you, 2017!

 

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution? If so, I want to hear all about it! Comment below!