​What do you resolve for 2022?

It’s that time again… 

The gifts that arrived in time for Christmas are unwrapped and stowed away (Well, maybe!). 

And now it’s time to decide what in the closet is presentable (and still fits) to wear for that special New Year’s Eve celebration.

Which also means that the question tickling your conscience is about to be the subject of many conversations:

What resolutions are you setting for 2022? Do you plan to make one?

I am my own worst enemy. I tend to get ahead of myself and try to accomplish too much in the course of one day–a trait that frustrates me and puts stress on my relationships. 

In 2022, I resolve to set more realistic expectations for myself. But before I get to that, I want to share an excerpt (condensed) from my memoir, Twice a Daughter, which is about a resolution I set, somewhat serendipitously, and it literally changed my life: 

“The notion of making New Year’s resolutions began last night over appetizers and cocktails. The six of us and four guests gathered in the great room by the huge fireplace. Ragtag tired from a day on the slopes, we scattered across the sofa and replayed the afternoon’s adventures. We laughed about how the thick powder put the skids on our skis, resulting in near misses with other skiers and unyielding trees.

Instead of dressing for the New Year’s Eve dinner and fireworks planned at the main lodge, we took turns voicing a favorite memory from the past year and proclaiming our brightest intentions for 2014. I restated the obvious. My favorite memory was incorporating Shirley into all our lives. Connecting with my birth mother and filling in the details of my personal story was a wish I had not dared to hope for before 2011. I’m content and complete in a way I hadn’t known I was lacking. As far as resolutions, I offered up a few measly ones: lose five pounds, learn to meditate, and take up yoga.

As the group went around stating their own New Year’s goals, my mind drifted. Were yoga and meditation all I really wanted to tackle in the upcoming year? What about working on the memoir that I’d been on-and-off-again writing since I’d begun looking for Shirley, and what about the failed search for my birth father? How did those fit into the boring list I’d rattled off to the group? Cleaning up the cocktail party and rushing to change for the evening’s festivities, I completely forgot about resolutions until this morning, New Year’s Day.

The first morning of 2014 is stunning and bright and inspiring. I stand at the windows looking out at the frozen landscape, warmed by the log house, enveloped in a blanket of pure silence. Sipping my coffee, I pick up last night’s thread of resolutions. Am I ready to tackle what I’d briefly considered last evening: renew my writing project and rethink how to find my birth dad? I just don’t know.

Finishing the coffee, I head to shower and dress…. As fulfilled as I am having Shirley in my life, crafting a memoir without closure regarding him (my birth dad) feels like a half-told tale. Other than an intermediary, what else can I do to locate my birth father?

Dressing, I glance through the bathroom windows and spot more animal tracks near the hot tub under the deck. As I follow the animal’s meandering course, I wonder what had been prowling around, and what had it sought? An obscure notion flashes in.

If I wanted to identify the creature circling my mountain home, I would locate its prints in a nature guidebook. Failing at that, I would consult one of the local wildlife experts.

A local expert. That’s it!

Dashing to my laptop, I query genealogical societies and land on a website where genealogists are arrayed by state. Only one expert in the state of Wisconsin who traces family lineage, and she’s right where I need her to be. 

My list of 2014 resolutions just got its headliner.”

That decision on New Year’s Day in 2014, led to my hiring a genealogist who located my birth dad and connected me with two siblings I didn’t know I had. It also led to other things like an amazing twist of fate that determined the ending of the book I had been contemplating. Six years later, I finished writing the book and it released in May 2021 with high acclaim. 

Unlike the goals I set in 2014, in the new year I’m not resolving to lose weight (although I do have some extra Covid poundage to shed), and I already practice yoga and meditation. Rather, I’m making a conscious change in how I set my daily expectations, which I hope will lead to a more non-plussed me. 

Every morning, I plan to remove 1 or 2 items from the onerous daily to-do list. I’m hopeful that this strategy will set me up for constructive feedback from my cranky inner critic at the end of the day. And if by chance I get to the scratched-off items at day’s end, so be it. 

Somehow, just knowing that 2022 will usher in a gentler and more compassionate inner judge is taking some of the stress off my shoulders this holiday season. I already started working on this with some success.

I hope you are gentle with yourself as you consider New Year’s resolutions. Realistic, too. Whatever you resolve, if anything, I wish you profound success. 

Soon, we will be done with 2021 and that alone is a milestone worthy of celebration. 

Cheers!

xo Julie

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