I Resolve to See Myself

and you should, too

Photo by Rory McKeever on Unsplash

I am in my living room, reading a book and listening to a Leif Vollebekk album on my new record player for what feels like the hundredth time, and it never grows old.

It is the seventh of January, and I am quiet and slow, despite a quick beginning to the morning with packing lunches and taking kids to school. I dance between panic and calm more than I’d like to admit, whether it’s my Virgo-ness or a part of my own nurture, I’m not sure, but I am constantly learning to pay attention to it.

And to breathe in the liminality of it all.

So I try to breathe deeply the scents and sights of home, the daily messes and moments that make this life mine.

I say good morning to Alexa, something I usually regret. She answers

Good morning. And how are you keeping up with those New Years resolutions?

I tell her to stop talking and keep washing the bowl of the crock pot, dirty from a delicious batch of red beans my partner made for us yesterday.

I like goals and resolutions a lot; a to-do list and a schedule are my go-to in daily life as a self-employed person who can work from anywhere. But resolutions can be difficult, because they are laced with pressure, and, later on, that essence of shame lingering in the back of the throat when we bring them up in the middle of January.

So, like I do with words all the time, I look up the etymology of “resolution” and I am not really surprised by it. Like so many words, we are familiar with the most popular ways of understanding them, but I like to look deeper, see the word as a multi-faceted thing, nearly as a being with different sides to them that we’ve been ignoring.

Let’s not put our words into boxes. Let’s not force them to be someone they’re not.

Let’s not put ourselves into boxes. Let’s not force ourselves to be someone we’re not.

I read through the different definitions of “resolution” and am drawn to the definition found in chemistry:

the process of reducing or separating something into its components.

Further down I see the word “resolve” and stumble on

(of something seen at a distance) turn into a different form when seen more clearly.

I’m drawn to both.

In Katherine May’s beautiful book The Electricity of Every Living Thing she shares about a moment when she wants to give up walking the South West Coast Path. She’s chatting with her close friend Beccy, and says

“I’m so slow.”

Beccy responds

“You’re not slow; you’re just not estimating your mileage properly.”

I pause while reading this. It is still early January, and we have started, failed, started again, trying to get ourselves over some threshold to a “new” version of ourselves, as if some switch was flipped on New Years Eve while we slept or kissed someone or toasted to the changing of the calendar.

We are frustrated with our own slowness, and it would be so nice for someone to pause and say

There is nothing wrong with your slowness; you just haven’t measured yourself to this new year properly.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

In other words, set the pressure aside, be realistic, and embrace the journey differently.

If “resolution” is to separate something into its components, what if that’s what we do here, now? After all, it’s winter. The bears go to their resting places and settle into the darkness. They say to themselves

I won’t deny this part of myself that needs to rest. I see all sides of myself, and I trust myself to know how to show up when Spring comes.

I chuckle to myself. We can’t all go into caves for the next three months. But we can hold all the parts of ourselves with respect. My chaos and my calm are part of me, and I dance with them. My body who knows chronic illness dances too, and I cherish her.

January is a revolving door of sorts. We look back and see ourselves there on the other side, and we embrace ourselves on this side. Both us. Both cherished and known.

Now, this beautiful definition of resolve really draws me in on this seventh day of January, how we approach something from a distance only to see it more clearly for what it is.

How long have I held myself at a distance? My voice, my goals, my ideas, my fears, my child self, my very soul—far away, they are a blur. I don’t trust them. They’re strangers to me, until I get up close, until I pull out the binoculars, until I pause and see them for who they are—for who I am.

A gift for you— a poem I wrote last year called “Janus” based off the Roman god of new beginnings, the one who sees backward and forward with two faces.

May we shake off the pressures and the shame and simply resolve to see all parts of ourselves clearly for who they are.

It has been said that Janus
is the god of duality, holding
the door open from the past
to the future as we turn
the page to a new calendar
year.

But I’d like to know what
goes on between the two
faces, what’s happening
in the ears and mind of a
god who is trying to teach
us to let go and to embrace
at the same time.

What memories float there
between the past and future
for Janus, a memory of a 
mother or a dream for a future
that is marked with power, love,
and care?

What of the present moment,
the Now of time that actually
exists in both past and future,
the Now that constantly moves
with us as we navigate the
tricky waters of being human?

Is it possible that our soul exists
between our ears, nestled somewhere
in a back corner of the brain, waiting
to be acknowledged by our dualistic 
mindsets and to-do lists?

Does our child-self live there too,
the one who reminds us of presence,
of joy and curiosity, of asking questions
because the world is big and beautiful
and we belong to it?

I think that maybe Janus holds
the door open for us to remember
that there is no past or future without
that expansive soul, and maybe all
this time we’ve gotten it wrong, our
dualistic thinking driving us to create
new resolutions and dissolve past 
regrets without the presence of Now
to guide us home.

Then I look closer and see a tear slide
down the cheek of Janus, the one looking
from the past to the future, and I imagine
that this tear will be captured in time
forever, kept in a glass case that we
can visit from time to time to remind
all of us that the present holds us steady
even as we turn the calendar page
and begin again.