Project 54- My year of Open Hearted Living

Happy Birthday to Me! Fifty three, wizened, jaded, achy and fine, with much left to be done. Which brings me to THE PROJECT.

Having lived 53 years, I've seen a lot of things. Good, bad, heartbreaking, breathtaking. I've developed opinions, judgements, attitude (lots), ways of thinking and an overall style of living that needs to be tweaked (lots!)

I have decided to engage in the concept of living with my Heart Wide Open. To take each day of my 54TH year, and leap into it with the sole purpose of finding the good in it. Even the bad stuff has it's life altering tonic that takes you, ultimately, to a better place. The adage "what doesn't kill you makes your stronger," is not without truth. So the good, the ordinary, the outstanding and the amazing must be embraced.

This isn't going to be easy for me. My default thoughts tend to be negative. It's an old Irish family trait. I come from a family of Warriors and Worries, always on guard, and waiting for the sky to fall. I have absorbed this, and passed it on, I'm afraid, to my boys. But because I believe it is never to late to teach the dog the trick, I am going to make a serious attempt to re-wire my mid-life brain, and become, dare I say it, a Better Person. I want to be that person who's Facebook profile shows a middle aged women who radiates girl...happy, confidante and always running smack towards the next great thing. Not wasting time on the negative, but always finding the GOOD. And there is so much good!

SO....

I will start every morning by bending my pre-arthritic knees to the floor to thank my God for letting me have the day ahead.

Then I will open my heart, take a deep breath, and set out to see the world through new eyes. The old problems will still be there, like jealous boyfriends hiding in the bushes to see if you come home with the girls you left with. The sun won't be any brighter than it is now, but maybe I will think it so. The kids won't be any less problematic, but I just might start to see them as adults, and slipping away into the years of their own lives, and love them little more. The money problems will still be there, but maybe at the years end, money won't be the Warden of My Life it appears to be now.

Who knows? All I do know, (at the risk of sounding like Oprah, what I know for sure,) is that I know nothing about the 54TH year of my life, but I am willing to live it in a new way.

And it may just be amazing....