Life as I know it is a mixture of chaos, noise, laughter – the kind that makes your guts hurt and brings tears to your eyes. Life as I know it is a constant search for understanding, knowledge and an answer to the question ‘what is the meaning of my life.’ Life as I know it is headaches, back-aches, stomach aches and snotty noses; hand-made macaroni-strung-on-yarn necklaces, crumpled cards with I love you scrawled across in the front in layers of glue and glitter. Life as I know it is constantly trying to make sense of the world around me, looking for the humor in even the most dismal of events and being thankful for the many blessings I am humbled to have. Life as I know it is filled with love in all shapes, sizes, varieties and colors, the soul warming comfort of friendship and endless supplies of chocolate. Life as I know it is a messy desk, sorted scraps of papers with phone numbers and doodles and to do lists; bookshelves overflowing with literary favorites, read and re-read, dime-store pocket novels that have thoroughly entertained me on a summer’s day and books I have scheduled to read when the opportunity arises.

Life as I know it began in Miami Beach, Florida and now unfolds in Easley, South Carolina. It has been a prolonged culture shock and adjustment. Life as I know it defines me – in my part of the world – as an Obama-supporting-socialist-liberal in a red sea of Über-conservative, sometimes fundamental Republicans. It finds me covering local government for the paper, listening to factions of tea baggers who sincerely believe that pedestrian walking and bicycling trails are, at their core, big-brother government conspiracies to rid the world of automobiles forcing individuals to use mass transit systems. Life as I know it has me sitting in these meetings wondering what Freud might say if he were sitting next to me in the press gallery.

Life as I know it involves a rather unorthodox family dynamic that most outsiders find bizarre. It is a severely OCD ex-husband who takes it upon himself to Al-gonize the girls’ DVDs – sorted by release dates, Disney studios and whatever other schemas seem rational and reasonable in his brain.     

Life as I know it is a work in progress, constant emotional and spiritual growing pains that make me a better human being, cups of strong, industrial-strength-elite-Kenyan-runner coffee that jump start my day with a familiar feeling of love nothing else can replicate. Life as I know it is plagued with guilt and not-good-enoughs and what-ifs? Life as I know it overflows with piles of laundry that never disappear no matter what my water bill might indicate, stress-inducing deadlines forever forcing me to race and beat time, and a big bumbling 180lb dog who insists that his slobbery kisses are all I need when I am sad. Life as I know it revolves around my two daughters whose creativity, humor and stubbornness are like looking into a mirror, daughters whose rapid growth scares the hell out of me at each turn because the responsibility for their well-rounded spiritual, physical and emotional development seems to rest squarely on my shoulders. Life as I know it is a series of marathon completed triumphs, never-giving up persistence and diligence, and throwing in the towel when I know I have been beat. I want life as I know it to be filled with unexpected kindness, modern day miracles and the triumph of love against even the most insurmountable of odds. I want life as I know it to be more organized, relaxed and assured. I want life as I know it to embrace all my mistakes instead of berating my failures, to be firm and steadfast in my faith such that I can let go of my control-freakish tendencies, to be able to enjoy the rides and focus less on the destinations.

Life as I know it has ups and it has downs and so much in-between that I wish I could package, sell it and use the money to pay off all my student loan debt. The bottom line, however, is this: life as I know it is pretty amazing and I wouldn’t trade mine for anyone else’s. I stopped making New Year’s resolutions quite a while ago because I finally realized that being both impatient and a perfectionist does not lend itself well to resolutions. With age, and, I would like to think, wisdom, I have truly begun to look at myself as a work in progress. Although I loathed the bureaucracy of my job in substance abuse counseling, I learned a great deal from the addicts going through the recovery process. Taking life one day at a time makes sense – especially when we believe that God will never give us more than we can handle in any given day. Relying on a Higher Power – be it God, Buddha, Trees or the Sun – is essential to maintaining ones sanity in a world that is so seemingly insane sometimes. Lives are a journey and we are only on this earth for a short period of time. Why not make the most of it?

There are things about myself that I would like to change – especially in relationship to the way I so harshly judge myself and the way I have a tendency to look at things from the negative before the positive. Thus, I am a work in progress. I can see measurable growth in these areas over the last year, and while I might not have achieved perfection, my success lies in the fact that I refuse to give up trying. On that note, in 2011 I will cheer even louder for the underdog, I will hope harder for the impossible, I will believe ever more strongly in the possibility of miracles. I will be kinder to myself. I will create more opportunities to tell the people I love just how much I love them. I will offer smiles to those in need. I will continue to strengthen my faith and develop a closer relationship to my Higher Power because I need this in my life. Faith, Hope and Love – these are the foundation upon which I will continue to build a stronger me this year. I hypothesize that a stronger, healthier me can only equal even better relationships with the people I love, a better mother to my amazing girls that I adore beyond words, a better writer, a better everything.

Whatever your hopes, dreams or resolutions for the New Year might be, work toward them one day at a time. Don’t get over-whelmed because Rome, as they say, was not built in a day. Be patient with yourself and others. And never, never, never give up. Happy New Year 2011.