Free-Wheeling Thoughts to Finish the Year

It has been so long since I wrote here. In the past few weeks, I’ve had fleeting shots of brilliance, inspiration for new posts that I promptly forgot as I slipped back into the conversation and game-playing that comprises an O’Driscoll family holiday.

At one point, we renamed the girls Chaos and Mayhem because they got into the habit of staying up until 2:00AM giggling in their shared room at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I wondered whether it was the magic of the holidays or if they would have the same fun if they shared a room at home.

There was much cousin-love – piles of teenagers like puppies on the couch, sharing headphones and listening to each others’ music, playing games on their phones in competition and cooperation, both. At other times, the littlest cousins joined in, playing Candyland – the never-ending game of Candyland – and building gingerbread houses and Dance, Dance, Freeze! There was more delicious food than anyone could have imagined with decadent chocolate mousse and macadamia nut pie for dessert. Oh, that pie!

There was a photographer who came to do family pictures that we will all forget about until the proofs are emailed two weeks from now and the warm memories of that week flood our brains and bodies. It was a glorious time with rest and games, squeals of delight (none louder than my own Eve’s when she opened the bag she has had her eye on for months), and then a return home to a bit of discombobulated priorities. We have one more week outside of our routine to figure out how to spend our time and I am vacillating between thoughts of organizing and purging, finding a quiet space to work for hours, nesting and cooking healthy hot meals, and feeling so overwhelmed I just want to lie on the couch and nap.

And then there is the world outside, with its flooding and tornadoes, refugees still pouring out of their home countries desperate to find some safety and security, and Tamir Rice’s family. There is some part of me that wishes January 1 was truly a reset button – a way to clear the mistakes of the past the same way the dog’s tail swipes the contents of the coffee table with one clean motion. I often wish we could start from scratch; instead of patching policies with “additional training” and “stopgap measures,” couldn’t we just scrap the whole tax code, the immigration rules that exist now, the biases and built-up fears of police officers from the last several decades? If we had a way to design humane, equitable, compassionate systems of care for those who are ill, to deal with finances, paradigms of authority, I might feel as though it were possible to change things more quickly.

But then I remember that the only way out is through, and that the best way to make a positive change in the world is to start with myself. And so I will continue to work on being compassionate, open-minded, leading with my heart, and listening, listening, listening. And instead of making grand, sweeping proclamations that an entire year will be “the best ever,” I will focus on each step I take, each day as it comes, and set the intention that today will be a good day.

May you find happiness in many moments of today and every day.