RESOLUTION

He was my favorite professor at City College. I'd visit him on exhilarating days when I had great news, an intriguing novel, or kooky idea to share. More often, I visited him when the work day was long, and littered with doors ungraciously shut in my face by his colleagues.

Prof and I talked politics. History. Work. Life.  His words would ring in my ears and shuffle through my thoughts long after I left his office to visit another Manhattan campus, or battle my way through rush hour traffic on an exasperating journey home.
 
Twenty years after I last visited City College, I can still hear Prof's words, and feel his kindness. His voice was front and center in my thoughts on New Year's Eve as I contemplated all that 2012 would, could, should bring.

I was churning through my standard list of resolutions; goals focused around a healthier lifestyle, body, mind, relationships; promises that I routinely preface with, "No excuses this year. I am going to (fill in the blank) throughout all of January and beyond!"

Epiphany: these resolutions are lame.

And so am I.

Yes, I need to stoke up the discipline, energy, time, focus and commitment to be more healthy and happy; more patient and productive; a better spouse, parent, daughter, sibling, friend.

But what is it, I wondered, that holds me back and trips me up-year after year- as I strive to be that gal- that person who is worthy of the life I am so privileged to live?

Prof's words-spoken with the same deep, brusque tone that I remember from twenty years ago- answered my question. He first said them on a rainy spring morning, after patiently listening to a laundry list of concerns about my impending nuptials. As I finished chattering, Prof moved to the edge of his chair. Leaning forward on his desk, he raised gray eyebrows and dark eyes above horn-rimmed spectacles, and stared at me. I didn't dare look away from the intensity of that gaze-or those words.

"Darling, rest assured that trouble will find you," Prof said. "Why borrow it?"

I was a kid. An optimist. A dreamer. Unfettered and undefeated by life. Prof noted my attempt to process his words, and endeavored to explain: "You will get a root canal some day.  Or you won't. Why are you anticipating, imagining, acting upon pain that the future might, can, or should bring? The tooth dies, you'll deal with it. The tooth lives, you wasted a whole lot of time on your imaginings."

Admission: I have been stalked and stunted by 'imaginings' since my mom received a prognosis of quick and impending death twenty-one years ago- an inevitability that never happened.

Since I married- and realized I could lose someone I loved as much as life itself.

Since I became a Mom- and understood the gravity and privilege of caring for, instructing and nurturing four precious minds, hearts and futures.

I am way past kid. Optimist and dreamer has evolved into realist. Realist has evolved into Great Anticipator. My once youthful conjecture of a New Year filled with hope and possibility has progressed to mid-life acceptance that a New Year will bring continued activity and stress, success and failure, joy and heartbreak.

This new year, the canvas tilted. A Mind Shift-induced from memory and loss- implored me to view these twelve new months to come as life that I so want to live- regardless of the good or bad, the struggle or challenge that each new day may bring.

Dawn of 2012: I remembered- and internalized-the wisdom of a beloved professor.  I whittled away my standard list of New Year's resolutions into one goal: Don't borrow trouble. Embrace each new day for what it is: the golden ticket to being alive.

Surely such a resolution can lift a too often fettered and defeated spirit back to optimism. Surely it can help stoke up all the positives that will lead to being a better spouse, parent, daughter, sibling, friend.

24/7 cycles of bad news, political inanity and the ever-present challenges of being a citizen of the world, and a mother of four will undoubtedly whip and grind. Trouble will find me- as it so often has before. Or it won't.
 
Just bring on the new days in this New Year.

I vow to view each one as a gift.
 
Hold me to it. 


QUING Hereby Decrees:  Happy New Year.  By definition.