New Year Resolutions: Balança

Last year I failed to make resolutions. I was in an extremely happy place. Planning parties, hanging with friends, and, as mentioned previously, playing tons of capoeira. 

(Unfamiliar with capoeira? Click here)

I didn't feel the need to make any hefty goals to keep myself on track. For the first time, I felt, whole-heartedly, on track. I was playing capoeira on a regular basis, and weight was shifting automatically because of that. I was five months away from graduating college, and I felt very confident about the upcoming semester. I had become part of a community and was enjoying time with others, which in turn meant I was taking time for myself. All of my normal goals where in check. Everything was chugging along and taking care of itself. No need for resolutions.

That was last year.

In August, I moved with my family to Baltimore. To a place where I knew no one. To a place where going to capoeira was quite the trek, not a simple stroll. To a place where I was starting all over. A place where many things that once consumed my day, guided me on my happy little track, and moved me forward--they were no longer around. A place where, although I still had my family, I felt alone.

This year, I need the goals. I need motivation. I need to get my butt in gear. After the last six months of first trying to do it all, failing miserably, and then sulking because I am not Superwoman, I have got to come to peace with my new situation and get busy making the most of it.


In the beginning, I drove three times a week the 45 minute drive to DC to try to get to capoeira. I felt this was important since it had been a huge part of my life in Atlanta for the previous year. However this turned an 1.5 hour activity into a 3.5 hour adventure. So, I had to trim. And even at once per week, it is not enough to keep my activity level where it needs to be for consistent weight loss and the long drive makes becoming a part of the community so much harder.

This, strangely, is good for me. (Pollyanna strikes again) A chance to start fresh. I have a nasty little habit of going "all in", and abandoning other aspects of my life. READ HERE I had let self-doubt replace my writing, photography replace self-doubt, uncertainty to replace photography, capoeira to replace uncertainty, and now I'm in a place where I am starting fresh and struggling to find my footing.

Photo from http://tribesports.com/challenges

My New Years Resolution is simply this -- Balance.   

I want my life to be filled with family, friends, writing, capoeira, photography, yoga, spirituality, art, music, travel, and laughter. I want to learn new things and get better at what I've already explored. I want to make tons of new friends and visit my current ones. At the end of the upcoming year, when I am preparing for 2014, I want to feel that I have enjoyed the year the best I could have. I want to have a beautiful collection of memories.  That is what I want most in 2013.

There will be goals. I want to find a local group of writers, become more involved in the local capoeira group(s), continue to make my body healthier, learn Portuguese, finish a second novel, get Iron Thirst published, master my headstand, actually pull off a macaco, travel more, and many other things that I plan to jot down to hold myself accountable. But at the very top of that list, the most important thing of all, I want balance. I have learned stacking my entire existance on top of one activity leaves me in a vulnerable place. I have to share my skills and my time with all the things that I enjoy and love so that things don't slip away, but if they do--I have other things to fall back on.

Now to start making that long lists of wishes for the next year. I know going in that not all will be checked off. Some will sit on a list and be replaced with real life and new paths. And I am ok with that. What's the line? Shoot for the moon and land in the stars. Seems a decent enough anthem for 2013. So good luck to me. And good luck to you. And have a Happy New Year!

Do you feel your life has balance or do you struggle? Do you try to do it all or bury yourself in one interest? Have you written your New Years resolutions or are you winging it?