I would love to say that what I have woken to is all wonderful, and that my time away has been restorative.  The truth is, opening my eyes has meant having to see those parts of myself that are pretty, well…you know, dark.  I am not saying, something like “Oh, woe is me!”   Heck no!

What I am saying is that I recognize that I have been slowly chipping away at all the good that I have worked so hard to achieve over the last few years.  And what exactly the point of that is, I do not know.  It is, however, exactly what I have been doing.  I have allowed my health to deteriorate, my weight to gain, my physical appearance to become disheveled, my thoughts to shift to black, my creativity to be stifled.  And why?

Was it depression?  Possibly…okay, probably.  But why?  Was I missing home for the first time in my life?  Possibly…okay, probably.  Was I feeling lonely and wishing that I could meet someone special? Possibly…I refuse to say probably here, because I prefer denial on this topic.  The point is, today, I looked in the mirror and found myself asking the same question I had asked myself upon my arrival to Rome two years ago… That’s right, it’s been two years since I started this romance with the Eternal City.  The question was:  Who are you?  The image in the mirror did not reflect anyone I knew, or wanted to know.  I wanted to hide myself from myself…and then I thought, Why hide?  This is simply another step on the path to who are becoming.  Perhaps that is a bit too zen…For me, however, it worked and it is still working.  So, I have come to a decision to charge of my life from this point forward.  At this point, you are probably thinking How, D?  

Well, that’s the tricky part, isn’t it?  Imagine if everyone knew just how to make their lives better, wouldn’t that be great?  Well, I certainly don’t know how all the steps that I shall need to take in order to take charge of my life, but there are ten (yes, 10) resolutions to which I have come.

Okay, so I know that one should normally make resolutions at the start of the year.  That’s that whole New Year’s Resolution  thing.  Got it.  Since, however, I have always tended to like keeping an open mind about the future, I’ve never really seriously made resolutions for the near year…and I don’t think I ever will.  Making resolution for the end of the year seems to be something that I can handle more easily… It’s a bit more…short-term.  I mean, I have only two and a half month’s to get these ten resolutions together or stick to them as the case may be.

So what are they?  Well, first I have say that I plan to give a weekly update on my progress in maintaining the resolutions.  Ten resolutions in ten weeks…I can dig it, can you? 😉

By the way, any support on achieving all of these would be lovely!

Until Next Time!

Best,

D.

Related articles

• Time to put some resolve into our resolutions (unicef.org.au)
• How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions (apartmentguide.com)
• New Year’s Resolutions (hebslimdown.wordpress.com)