Of Resolutions

It's almost Spring here. Every day, you can feel it coming closer, curling out of the ground with the cherry tree blossoms and the first of the daffodils. I keep waking at night to the sound of rain, and I can smell it in the saturated breeze. I never sleep with the window closed these nights.

 At the beginning of this year, I made some New Year's Resolutions, as we who are never tired of hoping are wont to do. One of my main goals was balance; I need to be able to keep an equilibrium between all those things in my life which are important to me.

I know I need to pay more attention to school, to apply myself with a more rigorous attitude, to live out my potential, to earn my scholarship, to prove myself. But it's hard, in the bewitching time between seasons when every fibre of me longs to run from the responsibilities that hold me, as tiresome and necessary as an anchor. I will tell you that over the past week I have filled my days with bluegrass music in cafes at night, with frisbee games and homemade pizza. I've woken early to spend hours in the forest doing restoration, and slept late after nights of laughing and singing and absurdity. I've spent more time than I'd care to recount on daydreams and read too long into the night. I've eaten cookies I didn't deserve, just to reward myself for being joyful, and watched movies of faraway places from a pile of blankets and pillows.

I really do need to crack down and methodically cross off the tasks of my ever increasing to-do list. And soon. But to spend time on what makes you happy is a skill unto itself, one not enough work is put into. You don't have to look far into the headlines to realize that simply to be happy is an accomplishment of astronomic proportions. The world can never have enough joy. To find your own, and add it to that larger sum is a noble resolution indeed.

-M