Resolutions.

I’m having trouble making my new year’s resolutions this year. I love the new year, love getting to start over and contemplate what I’d like to accomplish in the year to come. It feels brave and virtuous to take time to reflect on the year behind, and to resolve to better myself in the year ahead. Tons of people tell me they hate resolutions—that they feel cheap and ingenuine and are never fulfilled anyway. While I can understand that perspective, that isn’t how it feels to me. A new year feels fresh and clean, like new school notebooks in August, not yet marred or bent. And, I keep my new years resolutions. I do. Except for last year’s resolution to only check Facebook once a day. Oops.

Some of my past resolutions have been fun or trivial, like watching all of the movies on the American Film Institution’s 100 Best American Movies List or resolving to floss my teeth daily. Last year’s was more serious: stop worrying. I loved watching people laugh when I told them I intended not to worry in 2010, and explaining that yes I was serious. I knew that in 2010 I would graduate from college, and my parents had informed me they would no longer support me financially—PANIC! So while looking into a year full of doubt and facing fear of unemployment, I resolved to be vigilant about not freaking out. That resolution centered me through the year, and when the jungle drums would start to beat I really did make a conscious effort to be still. I pulled out my best Lamaze-like breathing techniques, my most potent chill pills, and tried to feel the reverence and peace of God humming in me.

So anyway, I’m having trouble making a good resolution this year. Actually I have an idea, but it’s fuzzy. I want to be like Michelle. Michelle is a woman in my mom’s aerobics class, and six weeks ago she brought her third son, Joseph, into the world.* Yesterday was Michelle’s first day back at aerobics since she had her baby, and so our class started with everyone gathered around his car seat cooing. As our workout got underway, I watched amazed as she soothed his cries without missing a step. She held him tight as we went up and down on our steps and kicked our legs into the air. When we stretched to cool down, she stretched her left arm over the same leg while balancing Joseph in front of her face with her right arm, speaking to him and making faces. As I looked at her, I couldn’t help but think: this is motherhood. Michelle had sweat pouring out of every pore of her body, yet she kept up with our step choreography as she clutched Joseph, essentially a little 10-pound heater, close to her breast. The steps she took created together a song of empowerment: I am a woman. I am a mother. I am caring for my body and for my baby. And I am so so strong.

In ten days I leave for Mexico, to take my first steps as a working woman. I hope that in my work I will be caring and gentle and strong. I hope that the work I do in microfinance might give women the tools they need to be the best versions of themselves. I want to resolve to be what I love about women. I love that women are strong, and that so much of their strength is not for themselves but for others. Strength born of love. So many times I lament that the soft and spiritual part of me is buried under an impatient and critical cover. That really, I am like Michelle but that I don’t know how to exhibit that part of myself publically. I think what I want to resolve is to deal with people delicately and with kindness. I want to be a woman who is not only strong but who is also approachable, genuine, warm and soft. I suppose I feel that I already do love others. What I’d like to do is stop being embarrassed to show love, and to learn how to be loving without sacrificing feminine strength. This I resolve.

*A note about aerobics: Yes, I go to my mom’s aerobics class when I’m home. Yes, I am embarrassed about this. Although it sounds pretty lame, these women do work. I am always ashamed that I have so much trouble keeping up, especially considering I am at least fifteen years younger than the youngest woman there, and about thirty years younger than most of them.