There were no New Year’s resolutions resolved at my house — nada, zilch, none, not even one. I realize resolutions are kind of a tradition, like eating black-eyed peas on the first day of the New Year (something I did because I decided some traditions needed to be trusted).

Maybe it’s a getting older thing, but I resolved a while back not to resolve but to keep it simple and see where the year goes. So I sat quietly early on Jan. 1, 2018, enjoying the coldest day of the year (so far). It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around it being 2018 because it feels like 1968 happened yesterday.

That’s the gift getting older gives — the experience of driving young folks crazy by telling them how fast the years pass. They do, you know.

In my morning quiet, I thought about another New Year’s tale I’ve heard all my life. It goes something like this — what you do on the first day of the year, you will do all year long.

Well, I breathed the entire first day, so if the tale is true, I’m looking forward to keeping that up until the end of 2018 (and hopefully beyond). Yesterday, I also drank good coffee, ate some healthy food, visited with Mother, spent time with my husband, took care of my youngest daughter, fed all my pets while talking to them and drove up and down my muddy dirt road a couple of times.

So, I guess the rest of my year looks pretty fine and relatively simple if I get to do all that for the next 12 months. Especially that breathing every day thing, that’s important.

While I didn’t make any “to do” resolutions, I did think about not doing a couple of things in the coming year. Stuff, like giving attention to presidential tweets that drive me nuts and stressing over the insane way the world seems to deal with things most of the time.

Nope, nothing I can do about either of those things, so I circled back to that idea of keeping it simple and seeing where it goes. In order to reinforce that idea, I decided to listen to me giving me advice in the form of a journal I’ve kept for years. A few New Year’s entries were just what I needed to hear.

From 2007:

“Yes, it is a new year, celebrate the possibilities. Be in touch with the possibilities. Doors and windows open wide to the possibilities if you believe and ask. Focus on your heart and your soul and the deep emotions that make you feel alive. Those will take you where you want to go and it will happen effortlessly.”

And a few years later:

“If you will simply let it unfold, this new adventure will be amazing and all that is needed to make it so will happen in the perfect way. Your only part in it is to get out of the way…”

And finally from two years ago…

“It is OK to simply stop and see what’s coming without thinking you must design the future or do something to make yourself better, kinder, more peaceful, more attractive. Can you simply wait on life, let it arrive in its own time and see what gifts it brings.

People think they bend and curve the river when all they really do is exhaust themselves fighting the current that desires to take them to the places and experiences that are perfect for them and for all of life. So in this new year surrender to surrender, and allow space for waiting.”

I will try to take my own advice and allow space for waiting, give in to resolving to unresolve.

Oh, another thing I did on the first day of 2018 — I ate the messiest, gooiest, most chocolaty custard-filled donut in existence. So, I look forward to doing that for the rest of the year.

Happy 2018, ya’ll.

 

Nancy Blackmon is a former newspaper editor and a yoga teacher.