Project 2012

It's officially January 2nd now, but this post totally counts for January 1! New year, new beginnings. At the turn of the year 2011, my slogan was "new year, new elizabeth" (hehehe cheesy I know!) and I made a very concerted effort to put the incredibly difficult year of 2010 behind me and move forward with a new hope for the promising year to come. I have super issues with staying in the present moment, and 2011 held a promise of redeeming that negative quality about myself. I even rearranged my room at the Castle so that things looked different when I woke up each morning. It worked, and that catchy slogan (and new bed-placement!!) pulled me into the new year with a vigor that I can only attribute to grace and a solid determination that the next day (and year!) would be sunnier than the last. Well after a year of excruciating transitions and enduring pain that reached a magnitude that I could not have even fathomed that my little body and weak heart could withstand, here I am again on the brink of yet another year. In a riveting conversation that I had a with a wise friend today, I encountered an outlook on life that I find both fascinating and appealing: I asked him what his new years resolutions were, and he said that he didn't have any because he was always trying to better himself by continually resolving to change and improve. WOW. I was quite taken aback and stood a bit in awe of that outlook on life. I like it. But I am not there quite yet, so I have developed a list-of-sorts of year-long projects that I hope to perfect by the end of 2012 in the hopes of increasing my capacity to love. And standing here about to embark on this journey, I find myself wanting to have a slogan to pull me through. I've spent all day trying to be clever, but one thing that I have learned about myself is that as a general rule I make things far more complicated than they need to be. SO I settled on the simple but fabulous: "Project 2012". concise. elegant. all-encompassing. and leaving room for things that come up that I want to add to the list (because we all know that I can't ever make a decision!). PLUS 24 hours into this year I'm already VERY in love with the alliteration that the year TWEnty-TWElve offers us; thus, I intend to say it as many times as possible (or until I annoy someone and have to stop...I have a bad habit of repeating things that I think are great until I numb everyone else who is listening and no one can recognize its greatness anymore...bummer). I'm actually pretty excited about it, and I have taken my first consecutive hope-full breaths of air in five months. Finally.

SO Project 2012 it is! I have quite a few resolutions, some new interests, and even a new hobby that I will talk in detail about in later posts. I am nothing if not ambitious, even to my detriment sometimes, but I think that the refined list of my own R&C promises for 2012 holds the bar just high enough that it'll stretch me but not too high that it's unattainable. Just how I like it!!

One thing that is clear to me from the past couple of years is that I have quite the selective memory (usually confined to emotionally-riviting events that lodge in my amygdala and won't let go!), and my short-term abilities to remember things aren't always the most reliable. I've never been one for using a diary...I prefer a prayer-journal approach to recording my thoughts; however, this puts me at a slight disadvantage in the remember-what-I-did-on-such-and-such-a-day category. SO I want to use some of this blog space to record what I have done in my days in order to bring to light the presence of God in my daily life in ways that I might have otherwise missed Him! I have a dear friend who will write in her planner at the end of every day so that she can look back and remember what happened. Well played, my lady...I think I will follow suit! :-)

January 1, 2012: My fabulous, fabulous friends and I wobbled in the new year! Yes, that's right...I said wobbled. By that I mean, we turned on the Wobble song at precisely midnight and danced through the whole thing! What a great start to a new year!!!! even if Jason did refuse to participate in the zombie impersonations like the rest of us and simply stood there with stiff arms and judgement eyes. hehe :-) then we kept playing this suuuuper funny game called Loaded Questions which basically turned into a bunch of inside jokes that kept our champagne-assisted giggles to a maximum! In the morning we went to Mass together to celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God...what a GREAT liturgical start to the new calendar year. Well played, Magisterium. Well played. I also had a super legit prayer moment with St. Joseph, patron of my vocation today. The theme (that I will develop later in this post) of hope was born in that moment of prayer: assurances of things that happened in the past with a person very dear to my heart and promise of a future full of joy - St. Joseph never fails to warm my heart with His gentle whispers. :-) Then we ate Carol Hart's fabulous roast complete with those icky little black eyed peas for good luck. I must say that I really dislike those and only eat them on New Years. I have a sneaking suspicion that the person who decided that black eyed peas and sauerkraut promise luck and prosperity in the new year really just wanted to play a survival of the fittest game: whomever can withstand the most naaaasty bites of those food wins the luck by default! Regardless, the blackmail worked, and I ate three heaping spoonfuls of black eyed peas just to be on the safe side. Later in the afternoon, my dad and I went to see War Horse which was incredibly inspiring. Gosh, I LOVE those "based on a true story" movies!!! I get goosebumps-of-anticipation during the opening credits just at the thought of how epic the story will be! And it did not disappoint. A super creative culinary creation on my part compensated for the yucky food that I ate earlier in the day (this falls into the Project 2012 category, so details will follow!), and Shawshank Redemption with my parents brought up the rear of my day! Color me inspired by day 1 of 2012. God is so good!

I have a couple of closing statements about the grace of HOPE that was rained down on me today:

Yesterday after the Aggie game, we went to go see that New Year's Eve movie since it was appropriately New Years Eve. I was a bit apprehensive about it (since the Valentine's Day edition was a bit on the skandy side), but the lovely Karen Alleman gave it raving reviews so there I found myself in the movie theater staring expectantly at the screen hoping for a sex-free hour and a half. I got my wish!!! And what's more, the movie made an excellent point. All around the world, people gather together to celebrate the start of a new beginning because, no matter what the previous year gave you, there is a resilience about the human heart that always wants to hope for a better tomorrow (this is the eliza's-theological-interpretation of the movie's message, of course!). The expectation of long-awaited joys, fulfilled promises, dreams coming true, happily ever afters, and chances to love stirs something in us that is so strong that we can't help but get swept up in the anticipation of it all. The tick of the clock at midnight lights a fire in our hearts, and hope is born in its flames. 

This evening I watched a movie with my parents that they always talk about but that I've never seen. It's called The Shawshank Redemption. Have you ever seen it? I must say that I think it's one of those movies that changes you...or at least it had that effect on me. And what was the theme of that movie, you ask???
"Fear can hold you prisoner; hope can set you free" 
mmmhmmm :-) The message of the movie is essentially to never lose hope because as long as you have hope, you have a promise of a better tomorrow and that is sometimes all a person needs to make it through the rest of today. Project 2012 is about freedom, surrender, and utter abandon to the will of God...and hope is the torch that will light the way.