lesliepurchase

As the year winds down the enormity of my project looms large. I have been dutifully compiling the list and taking some great suggestions from friends. I’ve even begun to try out a few of the resolutions in small chunks. I sat up straight for an entire hour. I flossed every night last weekend. You know, baby steps.

There are many logistical details left to be worked out. For starters, I’m not sure how to choose the resolutions for which week.  Should I group them by theme? Would being a better mother resolutions all fall into the same month?  Would I just burn out being sweet all the time and should I break it up with some self-care too?  These questions will all get answered in time but for now I know a few things.  The fact that January 1st falls on a Sunday is ideal.  The resolutions will begin Sunday morning when I wake up and end Saturday night when I go to bed.  Saturday night while I sleep nothing will be expected of me.  I will list a handful of the resolutions at the beginning of the year but most I will keep secret until the week they are implemented.  Since I am doing this in the public eye I am sure there will be mistakes and things I should have done differently but I know that if I didn’t have the added push of people watching it would not get finished at all.  Feel free to offer suggestions as it goes along.  It will help me immensely.  I am also taking suggestions for what to start the year with.  Start small? Go big?  What do you think?

One of the reasons I decided to publicly announce this writing project is because I am tremendously lazy.  Given the chance, the best of my intentions will easily go unfulfilled.  For proof, see last year.  The year of resolutions idea was germinated last December.  I kept it to myself and as time passed the idea fell away.  It’s hard to ignore something when people are watching though and this is why I have committed to doing this project in front of an audience.

I really have no idea what I am doing.  Like so many other big projects in my life I can not fathom what the end will look like.  So it was with medical school, residency, starting a family, breast cancer, and finally Olivia’s cancer.  This last one has recently come to its hopefully final conclusion.  My three-year old daughter Olivia just completed her last treatment for the tumor we found in her brain this summer.  When she was diagnosed there were moments when I couldn’t bear to look further than six hours into the future.  Both my husband and I took what he calls human bites and it helped us endure.  Her experience changed our family and ourselves.  I seized a moment of bravery to begin this project so now I guess there is nothing to do but write it.  As I write this, she is sleeping soundly next to me in bed.  She is the bravest girl I know and she is only three. I suppose being scared about writing and agreeing to walk in the Susan Komen 3-day walk just doesn’t hold up in comparison to what she has braved these last six months.

I cannot for the life of me see the end of this project, nor can I imagine how I am going to walk 6o miles over 3 consecutive days.  I can however see the next step and I guess for now that is enough. I think I just took my first human bite.

I have a lot of ideas as to what things I should try to better myself but I would love to get feedback from you as well.  Feel free to leave a comment with a resolution you have wanted to try or you think I should try.