New Years Resolutions

I hope things are beautiful. And if they're not, then I hope you remember this moment right now when they are. Because you've got to hold up each and every other moment to the moment when things are beautiful and say,

"Look. I told you. Remember this."

Every December, I look back at my journals to see the highlights and low points of the waning year. 2011 marks the third year of this tradition, yet the first that this reminiscing proved painful. I spent two hours paging through my life, from January to now, watching my hopes and expectations crumble. That's not to say there weren't unexpected moments of joy, because those certainly crept in. The painful part was that my eyes were nearly closed to them because my focus remained steadfast on the smoke of my torched expectations.

When I closed my journal at the end of those two hours, two words immediately came to mind: move on. And that's exactly what I'll do. Dwelling on the past is anything but productive. On the other hand, acknowledging the danger of expecting too much, and allowing life's unanticipated beauty to fill me up... progress.

The point of this blog isn't to have a pity party. It's to remind myself that there is beauty. I know this, because I have experienced it over and over again throughout my 21 years. There was beauty in the smile my mother gave me when I walked in the door after a rough semester at school. There was beauty in turning in my 35-page paper and acknowledging that it would never truly be done. There was beauty in living simply for a single monastic day. And there was beauty in every desperate prayer I uttered, in every aching word.

In the midst of all the bad, there was beauty in 2011. And there will be more in 2012. I simply have to stop expecting it to be there, and learn to appreciate it when it is. That is my promise for 2012. To appreciate the good simply because it is good, and leave the expectations for Someone far greater than me.