mid year's resolutions

so, let's skip the part where i come up with a bunch of lame excuses for why i haven't posted in two years. let's just say i've been really busy doing a whole lot of that "life" thing and let it go at that.

i've had a lot of time to spend with my thoughts lately (and really, i'm never sure if that's a good thing or not), and although i know we've already passed the mid way mark this year, i have my own little mental tradition of checking in with myself around the end of summer to see how i'm doing in terms of keeping my new year's resolutions going. considering that i can't even remember what i resolved to do this year, i'm going to go ahead and call the 2014 lindsey improvement project kind of a wash, but it doesn't really need to be january for me to work on cleaning up my act. so, thanks to some serious time logged in planes, trains and automobiles lately, i've had lots of time to think about what it is i'd like to work towards before 2014 slips right out of my hands (just like every year before it has).

so. first and foremost, i resolve to spend less time with my phone and more time with the people in front of me. i resolve to not measure my worth in likes, follows or retweets, and i resolve to invest more in personal connections than in those offered by the lure of social media. the friends and family in my life are there because they are invested in me, and i owe it to them and to myself to not spend the precious time we have together distracted by the seductive glow of my smartphone.

i resolve to say "no" with reckless abandon and to learn to be selective with what i give my "yes" to. life may be long but it's entirely too short to spend it doing things i feel obligated to do, rather than the things that are actually important to me. i resolve to remember that my time is just as important and valuable as everyone else's and that at the ripe old age of 34, i should finally learn to start treating it that way.

i resolve to work on filtering out all the noise around me and tune in on the music life can make when you're really listening. i also resolve to stop agreeing with the voice in my head when it tells me that my words don't have much weight or that what i have to say doesn't really matter, and i resolve to tell that voice exactly where it can go the next time it tries to convince me not to try something because i might fail. my mom taught me to never tell anyone to shut up, but i think in this case she'd probably tell me to say it a little bit louder.

i resolve to submit to my wanderlust and my curiosity until i end up in the poor house or an early grave. whichever comes first. i'll be broke and/or i'll be dead, but either way when the time comes for my life to flash before my eyes, it'll be a damn good show. maybe even with fireworks. but not clowns. no one likes clowns.

lastly and perhaps most importantly, i resolve to find the gift in every day. i resolve to take an extra minute to be grateful every time i wake up and have a whole new chance to get it all right, and i resolve to work on being ok with the fact that i probably never will. sometimes life gets messy. sometimes it really hurts. but i spend a lot of time trying to avoid the bad, and because of that, i probably miss out on a lot of the good, so - i resolve to learn to appreciate the sour for the way it makes the sweet taste even better. oh, and i also resolve to be more resolute about my resolutions.