resolutions...

Was at the beach today....wrote down some thoughts...

It's chilly but the air is somewhat crisp. I'm sitting at a spot I love to come to...to think.  I can hear the water moving...birds overhead and the sound of children playing. Someone is on a swing...I can hear the metal chain each time the swing makes a pass through the wind.  There are lot's of proud kids riding their shiny new bikes from Christmas.  There's some boys making fun of another boy because the bike he is riding is Hello Kitty. Clearly it belongs to the little girl who is standing by watching...Geezzz...kids can be so cruel. So can adults for that matter. There is a loving couple embraced on the pier...maybe making new years promises to each other.  Over the next few days people will be making all kinds of new years resolutions.  I have thought of a few that I would like to make but I will not commit.  Those never work anyways. I'm already cruel enough to myself...I don't need another broken promise to beat myself up over.  But...are there things in my life that I want to change...of course.  I want to be a better person.  I think most of us would say that about ourselves.  But what does that mean?  How do you accomplish that?  My dad wrote in his journal before he died about being a better person.  He said he had been so caught up in making money that he forgot about the people around him. While he was battling cancer he saw lots of hurting people. In the hospitals...the doctors offices...going for chemo...they were everywhere. When faced with his own death, it made him see people in a whole new way.  He said the only reason we were here on this earth was to help others.  He was sitting in the waiting room, about to go in for chemo and he looked around at the people there. He said some were there by themselves (my mom always went with him), why didn't we comfort them? He said, how hard would it be to send a card to someone who needs encouraging?  He said if he ever got better, he would start helping people and try to make a difference in their lives.  I feel like I have been so caught up in myself and my own pain the past couple years that I've lost sight of this. Sure there are times a thought will pop in my head...send that person a card...call that person and tell them you appreciate them...and on and on, but 9 times out of 10, life happens and I just don't do it.   I feel sometimes so inadequate...hypocritical...not important enough...blah blah blah...to help others.   It's just easier sometimes to stay behind the walls I've erected around myself.  I want to change that. Maybe if I can forgive myself for so many past wrongs, maybe then I'll feel differently.  But I can't do that and it seems to stop me anytime I want to think or act positively.  Ryan bought me a book last year on the power of positive thinking.  Maybe it's time to get it out and start reading it.  Ugh...Personal growth sucks.  Anyways...this is not a new years resolution. Just self reflection and a desire to be better. 

By the way...the couple on the pier...yeeeeeeaaah, the man in that duo has been trying to cough up something for a good 15 minutes. He just spit what I can only imagine would be part of a lung, onto the sidewalk destroying all romantic notions.