{"id":316,"date":"2011-01-02T18:39:34","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T13:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=316"},"modified":"2011-01-02T18:39:34","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T13:39:34","slug":"new-years-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/new-years-resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year\u2019s Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>N<\/span>ew Year\u2019s Eve is always a tough negotiation in our house. I love to be with our kids, surrounded by family and the friends we\u2019ve known all their lives; Steve likes a contemplative evening, preferably at home.\u00a0 For years, we managed both.\u00a0 A walk across the driveway, and we were at our best friends\u2019 annual New Year\u2019s party,\u00a0 where a pot of Hoppin\u2019 John and cornbread\u00a0 was served at nine and adults and children mingled happily together to ring in the New Year.\u00a0 My husband, who reminds me every December that he doesn\u2019t like parties, could slip home to bed whenever he wanted to while the rest of us lingered on, dancing to old Beatles tunes and singing Auld Lang Syne as the ball dropped on TV.<\/p>\n

One year, Henry and I closed down the party, dancing with our next door neighbor Wendell till 1:30 in the morning.\u00a0 Wendell was the dad every kid in the neighborhood adored;\u00a0 at his son\u2019s Batman-themed birthday party, Wendell suddenly appeared on the roof of the house, in full costume, dramatically traversing the peak.\u00a0 He coached every team, played keyboards in a rock n\u2019 roll band, could build anything and did, including a hot tub in the backyard, a rec room in the barn, a deck for sleeping out under the stars.\u00a0 It was Wendell who once dressed up as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and then put in a dramatic appearance under the pine tree in our back yard, jingling bells as the snow fell silently around him and prompting an awestruck five-year-old Jack to exclaim, voice shaking with excitement, \u201cWe better get to bed!\u201d<\/p>\n

Wendell has been dead almost two years now.\u00a0 And although much remains the same in our old neighborhood, that magical universe in which back doors were never locked and my own two sons grew up surrounded by playmates, much else has changed in the six years since we left, transformed by the realities of divorce, children growing up and going off to college, people (us!) moving away and new ones moving in, and the inexorable passage of time.\u00a0 The death of my beloved friend Diane in October was yet one more devastating step away from what was into a new present that doesn\u2019t yet feel familiar.<\/p>\n

A part of me yearned, last week, to accept our dear old across-the-driveway neighbors\u2019 invitation to come \u201chome\u201d for a quiet New Year\u2019s Eve dinner, to be back in the fold with friends who share our history and who have been with us on every step of our parenting journey.<\/p>\n

Yet, in a way, trying to go back there this year felt almost as difficult as trying to create something different here.\u00a0 The kids aren\u2019t kids anymore.\u00a0 The losses are still fresh and raw.\u00a0 Steve wanted to stay home.\u00a0 And the trip is an hour and a half each way in the car, instead of a stroll from one back yard to the next.\u00a0 I struggled with all of this for a few days.\u00a0 And then it began to dawn on me that grasping wasn\u2019t the answer, that it never is.\u00a0 Perhaps the lesson of this\u00a0 New Year\u2019s Eve was actually about letting go of all that is familiar, and to allow, instead, a space for something small and tender and new to begin to take root.<\/p>\n

And so we agreed to stay put, to make a simple dinner, light some candles, and let the rest just evolve. Jack ate a quick meal, packed an overnight bag, took the car, and headed to a party at a friend\u2019s house.\u00a0 A couple of our friends from here arrived, grateful to have a place to go and a table to sit at.\u00a0 We put Stan Getz on the stereo, poured champagne, and savored an aromatic, saffron-laced fish soup.\u00a0 There was chocolate fondue in front of the fireplace for dessert, Henry at the piano, even a short story read out loud.\u00a0 As midnight approached, I wondered if anyone else was feeling the need to claim an intention for the new year.<\/p>\n

There were six of us gathered in the living room, voices growing softer as the fire was dying down. We took our turns, made our predictable pledges for more reading in the months to come, more exercise, less procrastination, more travel.\u00a0 Our friend Nancy is dating a minister, a man who knows how to infuse a moment with meaning.<\/p>\n

When it was Gil\u2019s turn to speak, he took a deep, all-eyes-on-the-pulpit kind of breath.\u00a0 His eyes twinkled.\u00a0 He smiled, and said:\u00a0 \u201cI was at a retreat a few weeks ago, and the leader said something that has stayed in my mind:\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t lead us into the familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words immediately resonated with me, too.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been led this year into so many unfamiliar places:\u00a0 my friend\u2019s death, a charged conversation with a loved one, a podium with a microphone in front of 200 women, a guest bedroom in a stranger\u2019s house on the other side of the country, the first tentative steps into intense new friendships, the perilous emotional territories of funerals and weddings, worries over the choices of grown children and soul-shaking disagreements about how to parent sons who have become adults.<\/p>\n

Not one of these were places that I sought, but every one, no matter how painful or fulfilling or exhilarating,\u00a0 was also an invitation to\u00a0 grow and learn — if only I could open my heart to the lesson being offered. What I\u2019m thinking about today, on this first day of 2011, is that perhaps the best New Year\u2019s resolution I could make is to begin at long last to welcome change rather than fear it.\u00a0 To accept new challenges as opportunities to become more fully myself, and to ease my white-knuckle grip on what feels safe and familiar.<\/p>\n

The truth is, I\u2019ve spent way too much time and energy in my life trying to stay in the comfort zone.\u00a0 (Why else, I wonder now, did I go through four years of college without ever setting foot in a science lab or a math class, without ever donning a pair of running shoes, or leading a committee, or auditioning for a play?)\u00a0 Looking back, I have to admit that so many of the choices I\u2019ve made along the way have been the safe bets.\u00a0 I don\u2019t go where I need to go so much as where I think I can succeed, where I won\u2019t make a fool of myself, where I won\u2019t be found out to be the awkward, non-athletic, slow-on-the-uptake person that — deep inside — I still believe myself to be.<\/p>\n

So what would it be like, I wonder, at the ripe old age of fifty-two to finally embrace change as a necessary, even exhilarating, opportunity for growth?\u00a0 To head boldly forth into the places that scare me, rather than clinging to the safety of what I already know?<\/p>\n

This morning, my alarm went off at 5:45.\u00a0 The night sky was dark, save for the slenderest crescent moon suspended over the mountains.\u00a0 I slipped out of bed, pulled on my wool socks and long underwear, grabbed Jack\u2019s backpacking headlamp, and headed out the door.\u00a0 There were six of us who met in the parking lot at the foot of Temple Mountain before dawn, willing to get up after less than five hours of sleep, strap on snowshoes, and hike uphill for 45 minutes in return for watching the first sunrise of 2011 from a mountain top.\u00a0 The confluence of fading moon,\u00a0 rising red ball of sun, and morning mist was nothing less than magnificent.\u00a0 The most extraordinary light, the most perfect silence.\u00a0 The snow pristine beneath our feet,\u00a0 the glorious brightening sky above.\u00a0 Yes, that was worth getting out of bed for, worth the blister on my heel, worth the climb to the top. How patiently the world waits for us, I thought, standing there, catching my breath.\u00a0 Waits for us to wake up and pay attention to the beauty that is right before our eyes, if only we pause long enough to see.\u00a0 We are not led to the familiar.\u00a0 I think I\u2019m finally ready to accept the truth of that, perhaps even to head out into some unknown territory of my own accord.\u00a0 This year, I will opt for courage over comfort, new trails rather than my old, well-traveled paths.\u00a0 I will climb some more mountains, see some more sunrises, go where I have never gone before.<\/p>\n

What is your New Year\u2019s resolution?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Year\u2019s Eve is always a tough negotiation in our house. I love to be with our kids, surrounded by family and the friends we\u2019ve known all their lives; Steve likes a contemplative evening, preferably at home.\u00a0 For years, we managed both.\u00a0 A walk across the driveway, and we were at our best friends\u2019 annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,25,27,29,5,6,35,39,8,14],"tags":[115,139,202,304],"class_list":{"0":"post-316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-change","8":"category-courage","9":"category-family-life","10":"category-friendship","11":"category-hearth-home","12":"category-holidays","13":"category-letting-go","14":"category-midlife","15":"category-parenting","16":"category-soul-work","17":"tag-change-2","18":"tag-courage-2","19":"tag-growth","20":"tag-new-years-resolution","21":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}