With the year ending at midnight tomorrow, I truly was flirting with failure on the one and only thought that could possibly have been loosely connected to a resolution for 2024: clean out that top dresser drawer.
Okay. I’ll admit it. The need became imperative when, just two days after Christmas, I lost track of a beautiful bling I had unwrapped just two days earlier. Nonetheless, I managed to find the bling and a treasure trove of other incredibly massively important documents.
Once the drawer’s rightful contents were in place I sorted through the wayward paper goods, only to find:
- Eight credit card receipts from 2023.
- A really cute die cut lamb card from the Aran Sweater Market on the Aran Island in Ireland where I purchased a handcrafted Christmas sweater for hubby three years ago on a 10-day sisters’ heritage trip (but that’s another story).
- Three expired gift certificates I’d given up ever finding.
- One half completed check to a physician’s office (maybe I spelled his name wrong?).
- My place card from my daughter’s wedding reception.
- Two special birthday cards from two different years and two different people.
- Business cards used three professional positions ago (I must have thought I was important then).
- Cleaning instructions for the Navajo jewelry and rugs I inherited from my mother.
- Business cards from contacts I felt important to remember, including one from Rep. Joe Neguse.
- Last January’s eyeglass prescription.
Why, that was better loot than going through my wallet!
And it totally explains why I think of cleaning out a drawer as being loosely connected to a resolution.
To me, resolutions are really nothing more than “to do” lists. You know – those narrow-lined gummed magnetic pads you hang on the refrigerator to write down things to purchase at the grocery store. Miss picking something up? That’s not an issue. The store is just down the street so you can get that head of lettuce tomorrow. Eat an extra cookie that stays on the hips? That’s okay, just don’t eat any tomorrow. After all, you can always make up for missed resolutions.
That’s why resolutions don’t count for all that much in my book.
What is truly important are the other things that make life worth living: giving of ourselves to others through care. Love for not just others, but also of ourselves. Joy in nature and the beauty of all that surrounds us. The dogged belief in the goodness of others, no matter how hard that might seem to be at times.
Those aren’t resolutions. Those aren’t things that can be checked off a list as if they’re one-and-done. Admittedly, they are day-by-day challenging.
But that’s what I want. And that’s what I will strive for in 2025.