My Deepest Apologies to the Babylonians and Romans
Every year, it's the same routine. Miraculously, I've survived the holiday season. Santa (me) came through on the last minute elusive must have present for the kids, extended family members are actually still speaking pleasantly to one another and "can't wait for next year." I did not over cook the prime rib and we watched Elf at least twice. Our home is smothered joyfully in twinkly and lights and peppermint bark. Laughter and music abound. Success! I pulled off Christmas, again.
I sleep happy and hard Christmas night, my head sinking into the pillow with exhaustion and gratitude for my family, for the birth of a tiny baby in Bethlehem, and for a very necessary day of recovery on December 26th. The first person who wakes me up that morning, dies. PJs. Leftovers. Naps. Rinse, repeat.
At some point during this post Christmas afterglow, I start to feel that nagging dread about the New Year approaching. I'm not ready. Not ready for NEW. I was just getting settled into NOW. Part of the anxiety, of course, are those dreaded New Years resolutions. My friend, a trainer at a local gym, loathes January. Memberships skyrocket. Treadmills are over crowded with sweaty, well-intentioned goal setters in their shiny new Nike gear, and then finally, to her relief, the normal people return and resume working out again in February. I am usually one of the sweaty Nike clad girls, riding that January gym wave.
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Who started this resolution business? Evidently some 4,000 years ago, Babylonians honored the new year by pledging honor to the king, planting crops and making promises to the gods about repaying debts. Romans did something similar in 46 B.C. paying homage to and making sacrifices to the pagan god Janus (January), the god of arches and doorways, who was said to have looked backward into the previous year and forward into coming one. Even John Wesley, in 1740, created Covenant Renewal Services, held on New Years Eve...an opportunity to reflect through scripture reading and prayer, on how one might posture oneself spiritually in the coming year.
Lovely. Fine.
How then, did we arrive at time and place in history, where I am squeezing myself into new yoga pants to usher in the next 12 months? Why would I start a new calendar year with a list of shame inducing promises, I have no real intention of keeping? Why are all of these promises/goals/resolutions centered around things I am horrible at, or in areas in which I am lacking? It's soul sabotage, I'm telling you.
So I quit. A couple years ago, I quit this whole resolution business, with apologies to the Babylonians and Romans. I'm getting off that train. I decided to take back January. I kidnapped it. Hogtied it in the basement and talked some sense into it.
If December is the month we spend feeling grateful for what we have, who we love, and reflecting on how to give. Why do we wake up on January 1st and make a list of everything we don't' have, what we lack, how we are insufficient or inept in some way? Whiplash, much?
I've declared January as my month of rest. If Janus was the pagan god of arches and doorways, then I am hanging up a hammock in his arch between old and new. I want to sleep and pray and be still and reflect on all the beauty and goodness of the year gone by. There isn't time for good reflection in December, because we are so caught up in frantically fa-la-la-ing ourselves to death. I want to build fires in the fireplace and have long conversations with out of touch friends. I want to say yes to quiet, simple things like good books and hot soup and time by myself after the kids are in bed. I will probably not work out. I will probably not clean out closets or learn French or tackle DIY projects, or any of the other things that I always end up sending to the resolution graveyard.
Not in January.
January is for now, not new. If I can slow down the very beginning of this calendar, maybe the other 11 months, will follow, by example.
Happy Now Year.
Nichole Nordeman has sold more than 1 million albums as a Christian music artist and has won nine GMA Dove Awards, including two awards for Female Vocalist of the Year and Songrwriter of the Year. Nichole released a lyric video for her song "Slow Down," and it struck a chord with parents everywhere, amassing 14 million views in its first five days. She lives in Oklahoma with her two children.
