live one breath at a time | Grass Oil by Molly Field

Hi all, thanks for your support and friendship this year. This has been another year of growtzzzzgngngngnzzzzngn ngggggnnnnnnnnzzzzngnggggnan.

I can’t add myself to the litany of retrospective posts; I do enough of that in my own time, I will be damned if I do that to you in The Last Post Of The Year.

I typically don’t really give a toot about New Year’s Eve / Day culture. To me, we have every breath to look at how we are living and to use the next one to change our behavior if we are aware enough to know we need it.

And most of us need it.

2014 is over. It’s about 2 hours away from being toast. Dust. Ashes. Yesterday. It doesn’t matter how we feel about 2014. Many people suffered and many people triumphed. It doesn’t matter because it’s in the past. So if you or me or your neighbor or your best friend or your worst enemy spends one moment but one laced with gratitude thinking about 2014, it’s a waste.

Here’s my instruction: Have a safe and empowering final hours of 2014. I hope that when we look back on it, we can learn something and then apply it for a fantastic ’15. Just for clarification: I’m all for retrospectives if they put you in a good frame of mind and remind you of how far you’ve come. It’s when they loop and repeat and grind you and your beloved listener into a silent submission or prayer for it to end, that they are useless.

Here’s my plea: If you’re One of Those People Who Knows Your Faults But Does Nothing About Them And Continues To Hurt People, please … please … please: stop. If you’re feeling hot in the face or your stomach hurts or you feel like someone is watching you right now, you know it’s you I’m talking to. Stop hurting people. Start changing your behavior. As I say to my sons and the kids I teach creative writing, “Stop apologizing. Change your behavior.” If an elementary school kid can get it, you can too.

And if you’re a victim or a martyr or you feel like you’re in a rut, in a loop or other haze thinking about something you can’t change because you blew it, here’s a poem I didn’t write which can help you move in another direction:

There’s A Hole In My Sidewalk: An Autobiography In Five Short Chapters

By Portia Nelson

Chapter I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

Chapter II

I walked on the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place, but it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III

I walked down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter IV

I walked down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street.

That’s a simple, elegant, witty and To The *#^&%@)! Point reminder that we are in charge of our own lives and its direction. It’s both liberating and daunting because it’s so much easier to blame other people for our stuff. Anyway… Food for thought.

Here’s a pic of me and my team on our singular sunny day on Hilton Head Island, SC.

Here’s a pic of me and my husband and oldest son after we did the Polar Bear Plunge on New Year’s Eve … The water was 53˚ and this was my first and definitely not my last PBP. I am a beast now… bring on the plunges!