I have a confession.... I stress and worry. Yup, I stress the little things and worry the big things. I tend to focus on things that are so far out of my control that I loose sleep. I happen to feel as if I have to please everyone and heaven help me if I disappoint one person. I can be told great things all day long but I'll remember is the one negative thing that was said in passing. My heart clenches in fear whenever something happens that upsets my peaceful life and I find that I have the incredible urge to curl into a ball around a stuffed animal and have a good cry. Never mind the fact that I'm twenty-three, have had a job (for the first time in my life) for almost a year and that I'm happily married with my first draft of my first novel finally complete (four years in the making). Sometimes I still feel like I'm five years old with monsters under my bed, in my closet, and around that corner.
What's interesting is that, whenever I find myself in these situations, crying in my car on the way to work or locked in the bathroom on the floor, I hear a voice in my head. I don't often listen to it but it does give me incentive to stand up and get on with the rest of my day. It's my dad's advise that he used to give to me growing up.
"You can choose how to act."
You can choose how to act and how something is going to affect you. No doubt it's hard as all get out when all you feel is scared and alone, but the end result can be liberating. It can help you handle those large mountains and small ant hills. I'm not saying that life will be easy, and you won't find yourself in your car, sobbing over something. But it can help dictate how you treat other people. Rather than taking my fear of the unknown out on family and friends, I smile and skip down the isle at work, fist bumping fellow coworkers as I go. It's not always easy, but it sure is worth it.
So that is my New Years resolution. Sure, I want to get in shape and eat healthier. Yea I'd love to publish my novel and make enough to build my own hobbit home. I want to have children someday and be a fantastic mother. All these things, thus far, I don't know if I can or will be able to do some day. But, for right now, what matters is today... and even if I get discouraged, or feel at the end of my rope, stressing those small things and worrying the big, at the very least I can choose to be happy right now and as a result, maybe spread a little happy to other people.
Welcome 2015 and may you be a blessed year.
