Dear Addie,
It’s a new year baby girl – a time for reflection on the year behind us, new resolutions, and promises of what’s to come in the year ahead. But here I sat, January 1st, feeling like I had just done this yesterday, the week before that, and the month prior, and then it dawned on me, we start again a lot. One might say we are professionals LOL! That must be why I feel thirty years older than I am, but I digress…
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone either on social media, television or within your inner circle not talking about their new year’s resolution. I mean voicing anything out loud is usually a good way for accountability and the health & wellness empire surely sees a spike in profit, but crazy as it sounds I saw something the other day that said only 8% of people actually stick to their resolutions. 8%! That’s not a lot Ad.
Last year I made a resolution to really start living…I promise it isn’t as dramatic as it sounds. You see Ad, I made a promise to not hide from life. I am always quick to call it quits on an idea that has the potential to go sour in our world. Certain restaurants, outings, etc… I made a promise to not hold us back because this is who we are, love us, or be annoyed by us we wanted to have a shot at stereotypical normal family stuff too. Kind of a lofty goal really, because all it really takes is one explosive meltdown and I’ve quickly regretted the push to do this, and failure creeps in. I swear it really did all sound good on January 1st, 2022.
The fact of the matter is most of us (except for that lucky 8%) all seemingly suffer the explosive meltdown – metaphorically at least.
Work out every day – until you stay up too late the night before and need some extra sleep before work. Explosion.
Wine only on the weekends – until it’s a friend's birthday celebration on a Wednesday, just one glass right?! Explosion.
Grow a green thumb – until something inevitably dies and you decide green doesn’t look good on you. Explosion.
I think it’s safe to say we are quick to give up. Remember that 8%? But what if we are just looking at it all wrong? Remember that feeling I had in the beginning? It felt like Groundhog’s day of making resolutions like I had just done this, but it’s because I had. You see Ad, in our little special needs world, patience and grace are conducting what can sometimes feel like our train of chaos.
Let me tell you a little story. Three and a half years ago we took a family vacation to the OBX. It was our first trip there and we were ready to take in all the sights it had to offer particularly looking forward to driving the jeep on the beach hoping for a glimpse at the ever-popular wild horses. Now I promise you there is nothing quite like the first time you come to the end of the road and it opens up to the endless view of the beach and ocean – it’s beautiful.
You being our beach-loving baby thought so too and only had one agenda – swimming. When you quickly realized swimming wasn’t happening today a pretty epic meltdown ensued making this magical horse scouting experience a rather loud disaster.
The meltdown lasted well into the night, I mean hours. I begged dad to take us home, but he knew better and we toughed it out. The next couple of days weren’t all roses, but I’m not even sure what our expectations were by that point. When we got home, I remember exhaling and just being proud we did it. A family vacation – check. It was exhausting, but – check. I bet you’re wondering why I’m bringing this all up. Against my inner drama queen telling me to call it quits in ever trying this again, we let grace take over and tried again, and again, and again. This past December, two days after your 12th birthday we drove once again to where the road ends and saw the wild horses with grins and giggles. We even parked and sat on the beach to enjoy the scene without you making a mad dash for the water. Finally, success!
Here's the thing, so much of our life is like this. Every year I hope and pray for more calm and peace, but there’s a lot here we just can’t predict and sometimes it’s not in the cards for the day. We don’t just throw away the goal and give up, not even close – we just give it a little more time & little more patience. Slow and steady wins the race.
Addie, it’s a new year so this is what I’ll say to you -feel all the feelings, it doesn’t mean you’re not a positive person, it actually means you’re human. Being exhausted isn’t necessarily a bad thing, maybe you’re just living a lot of life right now sometimes it's a good thing. If you fail, learn from it and try again tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year – don’t quit, whatever it was just needed a little more time.
Some people thrive under pressure (those lucky 8% surely), but I’m willing to think we might all find our success in allowing ourselves more grace in the process.
Here’s to Grace in 2023. Cheers!
Love,
Mom
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