Contemplation on the New Year

Sitting in my living room looking out at the cold mid-morning grayness of the day, I'm grateful to be inside, warm and cocooned in my world of cats, family, and art. I am trying to center myself as I prepare to start another new year. I think about what I would like to accomplish in the new year and find that I am painting next years envisioned canvas with a much broader stroke than I did when I was younger. Instead of wanting to lose a specified number of pounds, I just want to live healthier. I want to eat organic food more, grow more vegetables in my garden this summer, cook more at home and eat out less, and get more exercise. Riding the bike that has sat unused since last year, is something else I want to do. There is no amount of miles that I have in mind per week, but I know I want to explore the bayous around Houston and I want to photograph my journey.  I want to steadily chip away at the debt incurred during the last few years of recession, but I don't have an exact amount in mind. I think I have finally learned that the best of plans can be detoured and derailed by the circumstances that are out of our control, so I am planning more loosely the things that I want to make happen in my life. Preciseness seems futile to me at this point, so I aim for a general direction and enjoy that path I am on. I will try not to lament the path not taken and hope that at the end of the year (just like at the end of this year) that I have progressed in my life and in the person I want to be.

Everything in my world is perfect, even the things I am trying to change.