Focusing On The End Of The Year

Nashville, TN: So at the beginning of the year, I decided to really focus on what I was doing in my life. To not just exist, but to live. Enfocar. I realized a few things while trying to keep that intention active throughout the year:

I've still got to figure out a way to multitask more efficiently. It wasn't that my focus wasn't always there, but it was that I was focusing on too many things at one time.

Just because YOU have a set focus about life doesn't mean others have the same focus. And it's easy to slip into un-enfocar (if that's even a word) if you're not paying attention. I've got a work on constantly bringing it back to my core and re-focus everyday.

Enfocar is exhausting.

So as a way to prepare for the new year -- and a new intention -- my friend, A, suggested a ritual to honor the moment. During the summer, A had brought over a prayer lantern and offered up my deepest hopes in to the night sky. It was a beautiful list of desires and dreams and I could only pray they were read directly by God. (Though I'm pretty sure the flame blew out & it landed somewhere in East Nashville. But as long as someone got my list, right?)

With two lanterns still in their packaging, A and her trusty companion, Mother Teresa, met me at the lake (her wishful thinking. more literally: the Centennial Park pond). There, we spoke of our heart's longings and wrote our words of intentions on the delicate paper.

A chose faith, a simple but powerful means to alleviate disillusionment. I chose wisdom, so that, as I continue to gain knowledge and skills, I actually know what to do with them.

Once our prayers were made, we lit the lanterns and sent them into the dusky sky.

A went first:

And then me:

As the lanterns disappeared into the night, I was reminded of how temporary this all is. The joys and the pains; the highs and the lows... they're all wrapped up together in a package we know as 2011 and then suddenly they are gone and a new year will begin. As I begin the next chapter of this autobiography, I offer up a borrowed prayer: that I may have serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.