Intention

Typically in January I set some intentions for the year. Even if I don't share them here, in the last few years I've truly been thoughtful about who I want to be during and after the forthcoming 365 days. When January rolled around I just wasn't ready. I couldn't make myself stop working long enough to decide what my intentions were for 2015. Sure, I did my yearly survey, but that was it. I thought for sure I'd have something down on virtual paper by my 30th birthday. But I wasn't ready. I was too busy.

For a long time - the past 2 years - being too busy was the best thing for me. It really helped me transition quickly from a place of deep grieving much more quickly than if I'd had a lot of time to sit and dwell. It covered up a lot of things I just didn't want to feel, embody, or understand. So I glorified how busy I was. I was that person who had to stop conversations to check my email and whose phone interrupted dinner, and I'm sure I acted very self-important about it, too. Anyway, busy got busier, and then sort of insane, and then it didn't feel like a good, healthy, normal, distracting busy anymore. It was a "I'm on the verge of a meltdown" busy, and on top of the life-busy, my heart and mind and soul were pretty damn busy trying to deal with all that grief that had been swept under the rug. I was struggling with everything - career, relationships, financial status, materialism, wellness, marriage, life. Just "doing life" was tiresome, each and every day. I couldn't enjoy anything. Except crap food. 

It's not an unfamiliar story. I was sad, super stressed, unhealthy, and now sort of overly plump in a way I had never been before. And for someone who always dealt with immense stress and crises extremely well, it was clear I needed a small team from FEMA to take control.

Establishing an intention for this year seemed so big and monumental...and just one more thing to set off an anxiety attack. Asking anything that deep of myself was far too stressful for January. And also for February, March, April, and May. And apparently June as well, come to think of it. Maybe I thought it had to be more significant than other recent years, because this was a BIG year - the year of thirty. Maybe I was just being lazy. Maybe the overachiever in me wanted to have ALL of the intentions because I was experiencing ALL of the emotions in a VERY big way. Seriously. But maybe, it's also just taken me this long to realize that this year isn't going to have a key word or phrase or special goal. This year is going to be all about living with intention for me. That's it. In everything I do.

Do you know what's really fantastic? The medical definition of the word intention is: "the healing process of a wound."

THE HEALING PROCESS OF A WOUND.

You guuuuys. Such a happy coincidence. I promise I didn't plan it, it wasn't my intention. 

Well... now it is.

below: the face of 30. and Oscar.