MY ONE WORD FOR 2018 : TRUST (or how I seriously considered binging on junk food while looking this "beastie" in the eye)

Since 2001 I've chosen a word to live my year by, instead of resolutions. At first it was probably because I was being lazy. I thought one word would be much easier to chose and stick to. In that weird way that the Universe likes to teach me, usually with a wicked sense of humor, I found out it was much harder to follow one word for a year. It's a Zen thing. One word takes me months to decide on. I write lists on scraps of paper, in notebooks and sketch books. Later, after the new year has begun, I'll find pieces of paper with words I'd forgotten about but thought they were important at the time. I salt my environment with words.

Maybe it was just me, making it difficult. I like a challenge. Or, perhaps, it's the pared down idea of one word in a world full of videos, on line news, libraries and Kindle downloads and the endless procession of movies that makes it harder to focus on and think about just...one...word. All of the endless data being thrown at us in two minute increments can be overwhelming. 

I'm like Phoebe, my "elder" cat. She prefers the quiet of a good sun bath in front of the glass doors to going outside and defending territory from passing feral cats. She likes to sit in perfect Zen fashion, contemplating the quiet and her own heart beat. 

We have no TV, rarely listen to radio except for music. I read, paint, draw, write, garden and take care of my four legged crew, large and small. I worry about bills and try not to dwell on the loneliness of being so far from my sons. Ever so often I go through a minor freak out about the truth of aging. (It really isn't for sissies.) And I focus on goals, breaking them down in to smaller pieces to make them more attainable. One of those goals is living by my chosen word for the year. And this year I chose a doozy. This is going to be interesting, working my way through this one. I have HUGE issues around this word, that started back in a broken childhood.

My word this year is .... drum roll please! TRUST. Five letters, one of them a repeat. TRUST. I've really done it this time. That word scares the bejesus out of me! TRUST. I've learned to be pretty gun shy with people over the years. Like most of us I've been lied to, led on, manipulated, hurt by and stomped on by people I loved. It happens. We're all basically flawed creatures. I've probably hurt people who love me too. TRUST. That's going to be like carrying a box of explosives through a mine field with a flaming torch to see by. TRUST. My legs are shaky just thinking about it. 

I am going to have to leave myself open and completely vulnerable to practice this word. TRUST. I will have to TRUST that the Universe, the Force, God or however you label that unknown, bigger and way more profound than us power will take care of my path. TRUST is about love, faith, and allowing pain to happen. TRUST is the center of everything I am going to try to accomplish this year. I will have to TRUST that however things come out they were meant to be in my path for a reason. TRUST. Makes me want to binge on chocolate just looking at it on the page. 

TRUST. “All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” 
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

TRUST. Man oh man. I've done it now! Here I come 2018. TRUST. 

I am, ever yours, Nancy, smiling at the way I do this to myself. TRUST. (I think I can. I think I can. I think I can...)