Reflections on a Failed Resolution

Just about a year ago I wrote my annual New Year's resolution post. If you didn't read it, or don't remember it, I shared my struggle with anxiety, my experience at a float spa and my desire to be more buoyant in my life in 2018.

Oh, my naïve 2017 self. She was so full of hope and promise for the future. I had no idea, twelve months ago, the journey I'd take this year in an effort to lessen my anxiety, suspend my stress and live life more lightly.

When I have a goal, I like to attack it fervently, with passion, commitment and dedication. I took my desire to be more buoyant quite seriously, considering a multi-faceted approach to seeking lightness. Some tactics were concrete, like trying a new exercise regimen that could provide me with the same inner peace as I found while running, and exploring (and finding and taking!) a new professional opportunity.

Other tactics were less of the body and more of the mind and spirit. In an attempt to understand why I feel so heavy all of the time, I learned that I have armored myself up as a way to protect myself from, well, everything. I learned that I wear layers of armor to shield myself from my daily worries, from fear, from failure, from pain and from appearing vulnerable.

These layers of armor have accumulated over decades and have grown with me. I added layers without even knowing it, to help me get through activities, tasks and relationships that have challenged me and pushed me toward exposing my soft, inner self. My shining armor kept me protected and safe during each day's battles, leaving me feeling victorious and resilient.

Yet, over time, my armor became less shiny and more tarnished, and its weight was causing me physical turmoil, becoming a heaviness I could no longer carry despite its outward, perceived benefits.

With trepidation and some concern, I gently started pulling away layers of armor, exposing cuts and bruises, decades old battle scars, half healed wounds and new, tender flesh that had been so hidden in the metal covering that I didn't even know it existed.

Seeing myself in this way was not as liberating as my 2017 self may have hoped. At first sight, seeing myself in my unprotected form was terrifying for I had a reputation for being strong and steady, a warrior mom, a warrior wife and a warrior professional who has it all and does it all. I not only had that reputation with others I believed it of myself.

I was just starting to pull out the fluorescent lights and magnifying glass to look at my unarmored self more closely when something else happened. When I cast the armor aside, I didn't throw it far enough and it was still attached to me, pulling me down by my feet. It pulled me down, down, down so that instead of being buoyant, I sunk.

It happened fast, or maybe it happened slowly and I wasn't paying attention. No matter, I panicked. I was looking up and the sky felt very far away. I thrashed and struggled to free myself from the weight at the bottom of a place that had no light and no sound.

For some moments in time, maybe a few or maybe many, I thought my attempt at lightness had backfired. Then, I felt a tugging from above. Arms and hands were grabbing my arms and hands, pulling me from the bottom of wherever I'd gone. I shook the metal weight from my feet to help me along but I was also worried about what the people attached to those arms and hands would think when they saw my exposed self without her shining armor. Would they think less of me when they realized I wasn't the brave soldier I'd made myself out to be? Would they see my scars as ugly and my wounds as failures?

I realized I had no choice. It was sink or swim and I had the chance to swim-with help. So, I started swimming.

The water is rough and choppy and relentless. As 2018 comes to a close, I have not forgotten my quest at buoyancy and I hope to feel it again some day. And as 2018 comes to a close, despite my failed attempt this year, I would like to set a resolution for 2019. It is simple: tell people I love them because all of the people attached to those arms and hands kept saying it to me as they pulled me back up this year.

My friends and family braved the Upside Down to find me. They entered the Pit of Despair and unstrapped me from The Machine and I love them for their bravery and, in 2019, I will keep telling them this over and over again until maybe I start to say it to myself.