The Burden of Unkept Promises

Sometimes those hours between midnight and dawn are like little doors that open and close and draw you into faraway thoughts. Your body should be sleeping, but instead- you drift...
Your soul is restless, your mind questions, your brain plans, your memory replays visions....oftentimes your instinct worries- yet, other times your heart finds hope.

I drifted into one of those doorways this morning. It was situated somewhere between 1 and 2 am. And behind it stood a lifetime of resolutions.
When a person says "resolutions", we tend to think of New Year's Eve- of a giddy, half-serious, handwritten list of habits we wish to break- or dreams that we desire.

But actually resolutions come to us all during our lifetime, and they come to us in many forms. Some are ardent prayers, others simple plans, and still others are a detailed layout of the future.

This morning I realized that mine have been promises. To myself.
Promises I didn't keep.

How would I treat a friend that had broken so many promises?
Well, I would find it hard to believe and trust them again.

And yet, I excuse myself !
I fully accept "sweeping them under the rug", giving up without a fight...
forgetting completely and without remorse-  the zest and determination that fevered those promises.

When I was young, I wanted so badly to "be somebody". To grow up famous and wealthy and successful.
But now, I just want to be "me".

It's in these early morning hours of meditation and reflection that I realize how difficult that is. How painfully unfathomable is that goal of being the person that I know I can be!
It's sad, really. Like being lost in a forest and not knowing which way to go... Afraid to go anywhere at all-  because you might lose sight of the sunlight through the trees...

...that you might stumble and fall- and forever be a prisoner in a stranger's body.

Last night my husband and I ran into two old friends of ours- and after a bit of laughter and reminiscing, the woman looks at me and says. "What do you do now?"

I froze.
And then said, "nothing".

What was I supposed to say? I blog?
I wash clothes and dishes and dirty floors?
I dust and doodle and read and write and watch old black and white movies on TCM?
I dream? I eat? I nap?

That I make millions of resolutions that I never keep? That I meant to be productive, artistic, healthy and thin? That I meant to have a career, a purpose, an independent income... an interesting life?

Resolutions....Those promises that disappoint, die, and dishearten...

But it is only because I have allowed them to be such.
It's gotten to the point where no one listens anymore. No one believes or trusts that I'm going to do those things that I say...that I'm going to be "me".
I've simply "cried wolf" so many times that my voice is blocked out... and silent.

I had written a comment in my new daughter-in-law's blog that this year I was ready to start my transformation.
Last night my son says jokingly- "Feel free to start coming out of your cocoon anytime, Mom."
And we all had a good laugh.

But last night when the doors of solitude and reflection opened, it suddenly wasn't funny anymore.
Reality stabbed me like a knife. It stung over and over again like an angry bee.
I had not only let myself down, but I had also let others down.
Friends and family that had expected more from me than what I had given.

How do you say "I'm sorry"?
How do you regain that faith they once had in you?

How do you go into that forest and blaze a path so beautiful and clear that you never become lost again?

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"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born."
       - Dr. Dale Turner