The new year inevitably brings with it the resolution to do something different with our lives. We resolve to lose weight, exercise more, manage our finances better or be a better wife/mom/person. The Thesaurus lists the synonyms for resolution as courage, perseverance, pluck and tenacity. So why do most of us give up our resolutions by January 2nd? I believe it’s that exciting feeling that we truly can turn over a new leaf just as we can the pages of the calendar that spurs us to make resolutions in the first place. That all of our past transgressions and sins can be washed away with the new number of the new year. And that the comfort of the space we are in already convinces us to let go of those resolutions almost as quickly as we have made them.

The truth of the matter is that resolutions are never the quick fixes we hope then to be. That, in actual fact, a true resolution takes all the time and tenacity and courage and pluck that the word explains it to be. One of my favorite gifts this season was a piece of an amber glass pane that was taken from my childhood church before it was torn down. The window belonged to and was a tribute to my paternal grandparents. My cousins salvaged this gem of our family history and divided it into pieces for each of us to own.  These pieces of glass have bonded together my cousins and my siblings stronger than that glass could ever be. That glass is a reflection of the resolve my grandparents had to possess to be immigrants in a new land, raise their family in an unfamiliar town and navigate an unfamiliar language. The resolution they made with themselves was to start over in a new country that had the promise of a better life than the one they left behind. Or if not better, then at least different. Both my husband and I followed separate paths then my grandparents but to the same end. We each left our home to look for something different in another country. And when our paths crossed we started our own family, raised in unfamiliar places, navigating the language of marriage and parenthood.

What gets me through the night sometimes is the belief that only the best things will happen. To get through the hard times and believe we will be okay once we do is the true resolution I have made with myself. To have the courage to stay in the present through the turbulent times. My role in life changes constantly from wife to mother to sister to advisor to friend and I am trying to work it out along the way. That is a recipe that leaves me with no small degree of doubt, a decent quantity of confidence, mixed with a good dose of fear and a strong dram of faith. I can only resolve with as much courage as I can to keep moving forward no matter how hard the road might become. Giving up on day 2 is not an option. When I look around me, it sometimes appears like other’s lives seamlessly follow a perfect trajectory. From birth on it seems their path is blessed, lucky in love, fortunes and friendship. Yet we all realize that is just an illusion and no person’s path is preordained. Life gets in the way. In fact, it’s through hardship and adversity that we learn our greatest life lessons.

I’ve always loved the expression “looking at life through rose colored glasses”. I know it is meant to mean that one who looks at life through those fantastical lens refuses to acknowledge the pain and ugliness of day to day living. Yet it can also mean that life itself can be rose colored, that it can be awash with that kaleidoscopic color of pale red. Why is that so bad? If we are taught that the best life is one of balance then what better balance then rose colored glasses reflecting the bad and the good of life? Or maybe for me it’s reflected in my family’s amber colored glass. When I look through that glass I see back a couple of generations to a strong man and a strong woman who had the pluck and tenacity to carve out a different life than the one of their own parents. In the face of such courage can any resolution fail? In essence that is the question only an individual can answer. The resolution is never static. It changes and shrinks and grows with time and experience. Which goes back to that morning of January 1st when all of our resolutions are no longer a promise for a future date but right here and now. Halfway through the first month of the year, my resolutions have already changed with time. But the resolve to keep moving forward one step at a time never will.