Resolution 101.

Blah blah blah. A post of resolutions for the year. Y'all ready? Y'all read one to many of these posts this week? Sigh. You're welcome.

I'll try and keep it short. Maybe.

I really only made one general, overall goal for this year... Live. A. Happy. Life.

I spent alot of this past year being.. well, sad. I destest admitting that. Josh says it to me all the time. Then we argue because hello, we all know he is ALWAYS wrong... even when he is right. When he is right I feel the need to argue with him just to keep him guessing. Can't have him knowing the truth of it all.

The sadness ... sigh. I have a very troubled relationship (not even sure the word relationship is a good term anymore) with my sister, and I miss her tremendously. Three years since I have seen her. THREE. YEARS. She has not met my babies. She has not seen my girls as teenagers. I sometimes (read: way too much) let this sadness get the best of me.

This sadness... It's kinda like having a hole in your heart you cannot fill, no matter what you try to pour or squeeze or shove into it. There are always leaks and gaps. I have finally given into the fact that these gaps are unfillable. Boy, that battle only took a year.

In this year, I am sure I forgot to smile and complained a lot and lost and left behind a great deal of the person I am. I got to the end of this very long year and heard myself telling my mom that the whole thing had "destroyed me". Man. I heard myself say that. It made me even more sad. I was just ... lost. Seriously and completely - lost. There is no making this better - no repair... as my "Jewish parents" used to tell me... "It is what it is."

Combine the above with an evening spent looking back over pictures of my girls when they were small (now halfway grown, don't make me talk about it) and looking at my precious babies everyday, I have just decided there is simply no time to waste on sadness in this life. Not one second.

Because you know, the terrible truth is - our babies grow up, our parents get older, and our lives change faster than we can shake a stick at. The worst thing that can ever happen is to look back at your past and wish you could go back and change something... wish you could go back and get back every minute you missed. I can't do that again this year, y'all.

My babies are fifteen, twelve, three and two. (My friends who don't have children just rolled their eyes at me... it's okay, I love them) I have, as my wonderful Aunt Karen shared with me (bet she had no idea I have remembered it ever since) a " table full" of healthy, happy children. 75% of them adore me. Save 25% for the teenager, who likes me well enough. (I can live with that) I have a hard working, dedicated man and father of my children, who lives and breathes to make us all happy (which, as he points out, is a full time job plus overtime in itself). I have my parents right next door - a daddy who STILL saves the day... and a mama who loves to come and collect my ever-growing laundry to wash ... and I usually add an extra seat or two at the dinner table.

I got it made y'all. And I am going to find the time to celebrate that every day this year.

So, my suggestion to you - turn it up, turn up the happiness you can scrounge up REAL LOUD - drown out the heartache you might be carrying around, and find a way... a place... to dance.

(my teenager probably just deleted me from her facebook friends, but I think it was worth it.)