As of today, I’ve been out in the world for 19,710 days.

And I stood there in the shower this morning, head full of suds, contemplating the new year ahead of me as one does on such a day.  I thought about vitamins – of all things – and how I should start taking them. And I need to drink more water. I’ll get out of this shower, I thought, and weigh myself so today can be my starting weight date, my birthday, the day (and year)  I finally get in shape. Finally get myself all together.

Once and for all.

As promises go, the only ones I have a hard time keeping are the ones I make to myself.

So.

I have no reason to believe, based on all the days before today, that this day, this year will be any different than the last. Or that today’s promises will be kept. I’m likely to forget the vitamins, skip the water, and continue day after day to watch my body reflect whatever I’ve chosen to put in it the day before. I’ll count my pounds and wrinkles, along with all the other real and/or perceived shortcomings, and vow to change it all – to change me -one more time.

And I rinsed the soap from my hair and thought ever so quickly how good it felt to be clean.

In that instant, in that one grain of sand through the hourglass of today, I felt a split-second of happy. Happy to be clean. Happy for the hot water. Happy in that moment, in that shower, in that small second of my life.

And I realized – right there in the shower – how tired I am of the endless mental litany of my own  lacking. I’m not ever quite the wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, teacher, writer … person … I want to be, should be, or am supposed to be.

I’m not sure where I got the yardstick I measure myself by, but it’s time to put it away.

For the love of all things great and small, enough is enough.

It’s time – before any more sand slips through that hourglass – to think more self-lovingly and less self-critically.

To go looking for those small moments of happy.  Gather them up in my arms, hug and hold them close. To appreciate them.

And I’m quite sure … if I can manage to keep that one, single promise … all the wishes I’ve ever made on coins in a fountain, shooting stars, or birthday candles will finally come true.