Word of the year...

So….I am not sure when it started, but choosing a Word Of The Year is a big thing. I don’t necessarily stick with one word for a full twelve months, but rather a general idea of how I would like to approach the year.  In any case, I still jump on the WOTY bandwagon because starting anything on a positive note, in particular an entire new year, is always as Martha would say, a good thing. 
 
For 2020, my word is neither glamorous, nor does it invoke anything worthy of fuzzy feelings, but to me it resonates deeply across many different areas of my life. It’s totally unsexy and although I am drawn to it, also want to run away from it because it pushes me to be uncomfortable in all the ways possible.  But I guess any kind of new year’s resolution or word of the year is supposed to challenge your boundaries and push your limits so that you arrive at the next year a better version of you, right?
 
My word of the year…CLEAN.  Yes, you read that right…CLEAN.  And while I do have visions of clean toilets and bathrooms because my boys are 8 and 6 years old (boy moms everywhere, I know you can relate), it is really more about cleaning up.  Cleaning up all…of…the…things. The visible and invisible messes.  Getting back to basics, finding joy in the simple things, and prioritizing the actual important things versus the things that are immediate fires needing attention that won’t even matter in the long run.
 
To take things down a dark road, we have attended more funerals than weddings over the last six months.  And none of those were for 96 year olds that lived a full life, with beautiful memories, going peacefully with family members by their side.  They were for middle aged or less than middle aged folks with kids and dogs and Saturday night dinner plans.  And that made me realize two things…ONE, I have it really good, I mean really good…our kids are healthy; we live in the richest country in the world with more opportunities than most can imagine.  And TWO, no one is immune to death, to surprise, to a world of uncertainty and the journey through loss.  So, what do I do with that?  I can either let fear choose the path I will lead, or I can clean up the things that don’t really matter and focus all my energy on the people that do…notice how I didn’t say things.
 
So my word of the year is CLEAN…keeping it clean, cleaning up my thoughts, energies, and actions to direct them at the people that matter, the opportunities I want to fight for, the journey I want to walk.  Because we are all on borrowed time, and if last year taught me anything, I would rather exit this world knowing that I lived each day as though I had a clean slate; no skeletons in the closet, I didn’t sweep things under the rug…but rather lived unapologetically me…in a clean way in every aspect possible. 

Stay...In The Moment, 

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