Acceptance

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome 2024. (So far, it hasn't been much different than 2023.)

I have been enjoying all of your blogs, but having a very hard time commenting on them since I updated the app on my phone. It absolutely does not allow me to comment from any of the phone browsers. Very strange since it does allow me to sign-in, but then it acts like I'm not signed in when I comment. I have to go to a computer somewhere in the house to do so at all. Please forgive the delay from reading your posts to commenting upon them. I will keep trying to figure it out. It keeps telling me to check my browser settings, but in every browser. 

(photo I took of the clock tower in downtown Spokane.)

Reading Aurora's post at Equine Expressions and Shirley's at Ride a Good Horse, the idea of a guiding word for 2024 came up. I liked both of theirs Release and Patience.

It got me thinking about my own word, and the one that resonated with me most, which is an awful lot like release, but not exactly the same, is Acceptance.

I had to make a hard decision yesterday, January 2nd. It was one that I have been considering and working through since about a year and a half ago or so, trying to find ways around it, or to change it, but nothing worked and the decision, or some decision, had to be made. That is all I will say for now, but it did lead me to that word--Acceptance.

I was talking to my mom about it this morning and how Truman and Oppenheimer had that famous conversation about the Atomic Bomb--Oppenheimer feeling guilty and responsible for developing it, but Truman telling him that it was his decision to drop it. The buck stops here.

It reminded my mom of what her mom, my grandmother, used to always tell her whenever she struggled with a decision--make your decision and live with it.

Make your decision and live with it. Hmmm. I tend to think about decisions, put them off, think some more about them, perhaps act, then wonder if it was the right decision forever. That is lead to an early death type of thinking.

Acceptance: make your decision and then live with it.

It's kind of like release, because you are releasing the worrying, ruminating, and stress and moving more toward a thoughtfulness and action approach.

If we did everything we could do, the best we knew how to do it at the time, knowing none of us have a crystal ball, or are perfect, but trying our very, very best at each juncture--what more is there to do?

The other side, of course, is what others do to us that's out of our control. I'm not sure which is harder to accept, but the same response is required. How do I react? What did I learn? How do I proceed now?

In 2023, and now the start of 2024, there was plenty for me to accept, and the universe does not seem ready, yet, to let me escape the hard choices.

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(The fountain in downtown Spokane. Stand in the center and make a wish!)

I am a big fan of New Year's Resolutions. My brother and I started a family tradition 25 years ago of putting them in a box on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, then reading them the next year.  We used to even have a family trophy which was passed off to the winner each year. It brings laughs, love, tears, and lots of applause when they are read out loud and we celebrate each other's accomplishments. 

One year, my husband wrote: Love Linda like she's never been loved before, and he has never lived that one down. The next year, when they asked me if he'd accomplished it, (this was many years ago when we were basically still newlyweds) I said absolutely yes! They all laughed and clapped and then teased him mercilessly every year to follow. The reason that one stands out it is because my sister gave us all a video of that Christmas and New Years Eve this year as a Christmas present and that whole scene was recorded on it--the mushy love note, the hilarious jokes that followed--all there. It was sweet and had us in tears.

This year's resolutions were well met by us--one of them having been, FINALLY finishing our barn! Woot! Woot! (Photos coming soon)

For 2024 I put in walk/hike 100 days and work with my horses 100 days. Seems simple to accomplish, but when you have so many responsibilities pulling you this and that way, it becomes tough to follow through. We have two trips planned to Sedona and one to Houston, so I do see a lot of hiking in my future. And, the weather couldn't be better for getting that 100 days in with the horses. I have a granddaughter horse camp scheduled here for March. Yay!

One last thought: there is so much that is out of our control in life, and so many hard decisions to make, also somewhat out of our control--it can overwhelm. But it also creates that much more need and desperate necessity to enjoy the beautiful bits and pieces of our lives.

Happy New Year, friends.