How to Paint the Sky

 

So after my super-cynical and post-traumatic vacation post here  I rethought how I would go about this whole new year/new me sort of stuff that everyone else buys into.  I'm not one for New Years Resolutions, and have never really made any.  However, the more I thought about it, the more a desire grew to articulate all of the things I wanted to accomplish this year...this month...tomorrow.  

Because when else in my life am I going to have the time?  I mean, here I am...volunteering in a low-stress, 30ish hours a week job that doesn't bind me to a classroom or office.  I don't exactly have a bustling social life chalk-full of engagements to attend to.  How can I not do amazing things for myself and therefore my family this month?  

So I gathered up a bunch of volunteers and drug them all out to the arts and crafts building and hosted an "art hour" where some of us made a pretty little list of "plans" to go to sleep and wake up looking at.  We ate through two bags of Doritos while I introduced their ears to Guster and The Avett Brothers. We created goals, wrote college-entry essays, and made birthday cards for mothers.

I was inspired to do this after my Mother-in-law gave me the book Nice Girls Don't Change the World  by Lynne Hybels.  In this book she talks about giving up her passions in her early adulthood in order to do things the way she thought they were supposed to be done.  To be the wife, mother, and pastor's wife she thought she was supposed to be.  Apparently nobody won.  She wasn't happy even though she thought she was.  She was bitter and unsettled.  She was uneasy and uncomfortable.  

I don't want that to be me.  I don't want to even get close.

In order to be the best person and support for everyone around me, I need to be the best me.  This is my first step in doing that.  I'm young.  I'm able-bodied.  And I'm ready to be great.  

So I made plans.

So there it is - out there - for all of you to read, analyze, and hold me accountable.