be.

i liken my life to a carnival exhibit sometimes....namely that one with the man (or woman in my case) who manages to balance bunches of spinning plates atop skinny teetering poles....dodging quickly between them, scrambling to keep them each from shattering on the ground below.  and somehow, someway....i manage to get the important things done.  plates break now and again but thats to be expected. i don't know how and i have no brilliant advice for the young medical student on my team who is now weeks into her first pregnancy and just shy of residency ~ much like i was 4 short yet far-away years ago.  sometimes i want to whisper, "you have no idea how hard this will be."

she has no idea how hard it will be.  the pressure, likely and admittedly mostly self imposed, of being a good mom, a doting wife, a close friend, a proficient physician....some days it seems insurmountable, to be truthful.  i wouldn't change one thing about my life but to call it easy, to say i'm not stressed most days, to pretend i don't wish the world would just slow down would be a lie.

in the wake of the craziness the end of the year decided to bring (seriously, the crazybusy train pulled up to my house and unloaded right in front), i've thought a lot about how i want 2013 to look for me and for my family.  i'm not a new years resolution type of person ~ especially not this year when i know that all making new rules for myself will bring is just more stress.

if you take the first letters of ben and emma's names you get the word "be".  just "be".  a single syllable two lettered word that says a lot to me about what i want for us this year.  the pace of life may not slow down any time soon but to try and be still more, even in those hectic moments, sounds pretty appealing at the moment.  to put down my camera and just soak up the moments, to really breathe them in.  to stop getting so jazzed about crossing things off my to do list.  to thank my husband more and be more open with my love for him.  to be more patient with my children, even in the crazy moments ~ remembering that they are little people with their own developing personalities with different needs and talents. to be a more present and less distracted friend. to stop placing unfair expectations of perfection on myself and to stop being so hard on the person inside. to just be.  plain and simple.

happy 2013, my friends.