“When things don’t go as planned, even due to mistakes of our own making, they can still work out for good, and maybe even better than expected!”
True story: On New Year’s Day, we went to the restaurant where I’d made a reservation for brunch at high noon, only to find that I’d mistakenly made the reservation for December 31 at 12:00. The hostesses were busy checking people in and fielding calls, and I heard one of them tell another would-be patron on the phone that they were fully booked.
Doh! So much for my “best laid” plans. I was embarrassed, but I didn’t just throw up my hands and walk out. I stayed there, in the uncomfortable meantime, waiting to see what might happen. Maybe because we were already there—our family of four, in the waiting area—or maybe because the hostesses just took pity on me, they graciously found a way to seat us, in a fancy booth with a privacy curtain, no less!
Annual Family Brunch Brings Hope
That being New Year’s Day, and our annual family brunch during which we discuss our intentions, resolutions, and hopes, I took the happy outcome as a sign for 2023. When things don’t go as planned, even due to mistakes of our own making, they can still work out for good, and maybe even better than expected.
It’s not a resolution so much as a hopeful outlook, a way of resetting that negative chatter that tells us (especially moms) that we have missed the boat on this or that opportunity, let down our children in xyz phase, or somehow failed our family or ourselves, and that no matter what we do, we cannot regain what was lost.
Sometimes that chatter is loud, friend. It’s been loud for me here lately. I typically love the turn of the new year: time to start over, set goals, aspire. But when you’re in a long, hard season, you can feel so defeated that mustering the energy to try again, do something new, seems like a lost cause before it’s even begun. I feel you. Truly.
Happy Outcomes
Whatever you are struggling with heading into this new year, take heart. Mistakes can be remedied, relationships strengthened, and even the hardest seasons can lead to better days ahead. We don’t have to “resolution” everything. Sometimes we just need to stand in the uncomfortable meantime and keep the hope alive.
If resolutions didn’t come easily for you this time around the sun, feel free to steal that one.
Wishing you all a happy new year,
Ann
Ann Bell Worley is a writer, presenter, and mother of two children, one of whom has a rare XY chromosome difference as well as an elusive neuroimmune disorder. She is the author of two children’s storybooks based on Nurtured Heart Approach (NHA) and the creator of www.graycoloredglasses.blog, which focuses on the challenges of parenting a medically complex child.
CONTACT
Our Foundation specializes in X & Y Chromosomal Variation Disorders such as Klinefelters 47, Testosterone, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, ADHD, and other Genetic Disorders. For more information please contact us or schedule a consultation at: thefocusfoundation.org/contact-us
If you have a child who has recently been diagnosed with an X and Y Chromosomal Variation and you need more information, contact The Focus Foundation:
dexy@thefocusfoundation.org
443-223-7323
www.thefocusfoundation.org