To take every experience at face value...

is one of the goals I've set for myself. The last two years of my life have brought much to me in the way of convictions, epiphanies, and the difficult lessons one can only learn by making a lot of gaffes.

I don't want this post to be full of strutting and fretting, just the the simple statement that I want to make it my business to enjoy what is available to me; to take everything and every one on their own terms, and not try to make everything that happens to me out to be more than what it is. How many times have I failed to enjoy something wonderful because I was trying to make it something more grand, more established, or because I wanted the assurance that it would "always be that way"? A lot.

So for 2006 (not resolutions, not at all, more like convictions I try to note as they come to me) I am practicing a greater degree of discretion than I have in the past; I am learning what I cannot control (namely relationships); I am practicing being intentional about being grateful; and I am letting things be what they are, mean what they mean.