Martha Rosenquist - January 2009
This is the time for resolutions; determined promises to oneself to become a better human by next New Year’s Eve. Ever in step with the times. Even Oprah is hosting a week-long “become your best self” seminar or whatever she’s calling it this time.
Resolutions like goals, can be effective if they are specific, have a time limit, yada, yada. But change is hard. If it were easy we’d all have the perfect life knocked. I’m not sure why but with me, it seems every time I set out on a new workout program I get sick or injured, or I change my routine by traveling. Every time I try to improve on my situation – my living arrangement or my hairdo – I’m just as often vexed by a whole new set of problems as I am happy I tried something different.
Because of this, I have an aching feeling that rather than try to improve my already happy wonderful life and self, maybe I should resolve to just be happier and more content with what is. As my friend’s husband often notes, “Every solution creates a new problem.” Is it possible that the better course of action to making all sorts of resolutions is to stop trying to fix things that aren’t broken?
A few years ago I was doggedly determined to create something meaningful – make that monumental – in the course of my lifetime. Having raised four boys wasn’t good enough, apparently. No, I would not be content living a life of one of those clear-skinned girls with glowing smiles who married well and then retired. I had more to offer the world than that! Didn’t I? I got busy. I would do something great if it killed me, dammit.
Right in the middle of this middle-aged crisis my husband asked for a divorce. That was two years ago and it threw me for the biggest loop of my lifetime. In my estimation, all I’d been trying to do was contribute more – to the world, the community, in any way I could imagine. To him, I was an unhappy housewife who couldn’t be pleased, craving attention, always longing for something more. He saw it that way and it drove him crazy. “Why couldn’t you just be happy!” he once intoned in his anger. “What was I supposed to be doing?” I defended. “Sitting around watching Oprah and eating bonbons?” “That would have been better,” he seethed. Yikes. He seemed to mean it.
What can I say?
For the next two years, when I wasn’t sick with worry about my future, when I wasn’t awake at nights desperate with anxiety and loneliness, I did little else but maintain friendships, keep myself busy socially, reaching out. That’s when I realized this was my best suit. Just going along and being a happy person while experiencing life really is what I do best. Giving attention to people around me really is the most meaningful thing I can give to the world.
A person has to have interests and goals, I realize that. I may have married well and then retired but a girl still has to eat. Eventually, I began writing again for a local magazine – dining reviews. I have a passion for the circus and subtleties of food in general, how it’s offered in a social situation like a restaurant, in particular. That was a job I could literally sink my teeth into. Sharing information, making people laugh, being in the know – I like it.
I’m sometimes torn, as I am in this week of new year’s resolutions, to do more, produce more, increase my net worth, prove myself worthy. But being a happy content person with certain ambitions is a delicate balancing act I’m trying perfect. It requires being very aware in the moment by moment rhythm of life to determine what matters most here and now versus the opposing goal of getting “ahead.” It still throws me. I meant to write this article yesterday but honey came home a little bruised and needed a sandwich and some TLC. For a moment I was torn; but I learned a lesson two years ago that I won’t easily forget. I sat with him and stroked his brow while he was comforted by turkey on rye.
Being available, rested, well-fed, happy and balanced allowed me to come into contact with this wonderful man who really seems to love all that carefree assurance I have these days. He doesn’t ask anything of me but that I’m available to share life with him. To be my best for me and him I need to keep myself healthy enough, go to the grocery store so we have good food to share, keep my social network active and engaging so we can have fun with others, nurture myself so I look and feel my best. That’s about it.
One of our famous local chefs describes his successful approach to cooking this way, “I buy the best ingredients I can find and try not to screw them up.” This seems like great advice for life. I have everything going for me. All I have to do is use my attributes, talents, gifts, and intelligence in a way that doesn’t cause any harm. So the question I will meditate on before I say, do, or change anything in this coming year is this: In doing, saying, changing something will I cause any harm? If the answer is no, the next question should be: Will it do any good? Is it worth my trouble? What will I give up to do this new thing? And if in answer to those probes I get a resounding “yes” and “nothing,” only then will I do, say, or change.
If not, I will simply let it be.
