Promisary Note: Tiny Hands

In 2014, I took on the task of fulfilling 52 promises over the course of a year.  It was meant to be a promise a week.  In the end, I failed to keep the timeline and I eventually lost track of the task.  That isn't to say that I failed utterly though, for there were some interesting things that arose as a result, and I think I can trace many of them back to the 52 promises.

First, I wanted to take a year's end accounting of the promises.  In the end, I failed to complete 11 promises, that's almost three months worth.  Although, another way of looking at it is to say that I completed over 9 months of promises.  While I stopped blogging about my promises, I still engaged in the exercise.  What I found when I looked back through the promises was that I didn't complete a lot of the promises that had to do with a couple of subjects: exercise, writing, and those oriented toward personal (not social) time.  It looks like I was dedicated to making time for others, but not for myself, which brings up some things that I look forward to working on in the next year.

The question may arise as to how this all wound up coming up now, conveniently at the end of the year.  The answer is simple.  I was cleaning up my office in preparation for a new term, which includes a new adjunct teaching position, when my daughter found my bowl of promises.  She remembered the activity and asked if she could draw a promise.  I told her, "I'm not really doing that anymore, honey."  She then gave me this face...

I couldn't say no.

So, she drew a slender piece of paper from the bowl.  It read, "Surprise your daughter with something fun."  Shea read it in her slow 2nd grade thoughtful way, looked up at me, and said, "You already did this, Dad."  I thought about it and agreed.  I had made an effort to surprise Shea on occasion with a thoughtful activity or gift.  She recognized that fact immediately.

"Can I draw another one?"

I told her she could, and she dipped her hand back into the bowl to retrieve another slip of paper.  She drew out, "Do some home improvement."  I thought back and remembered my fight with a pipe leak under the house.  It was a long term home improvement project I finished on my own.  Done, I thought.  Shea drew again.  The next two promises had also been fulfilled.  I was on a roll.  Something I thought I had failed at turned out to be something I had naturally incorporated into my personal life.  By paying attention to these promises across the first seven months and blogging about it, I had naturally worked this sort of attentiveness into my way of living.

The next thing that unfolded was that I began to make bigger and bigger changes in my life.  I incorporated a lot of new changes into how I taught my writing class.  I went back out into the job market in search of a new adjunct position.  I quit drinking.  I began working on improving myself in new and revolutionary ways.  As I finish out 2014, I can see a difference in myself.  There is a new attentiveness to the "now" of my life.  I try and allow myself a greater presence in the moment, without dread of the past or fear of the future.  I'm looking forward to implementing these changes in 2015.

As I formulate those goals in greater detail, I will try in earnest to return to the page.  I'm hoping you, my audience, will still be there in all the lovely ways you were in 2014.

All of this grew out of the movements of one tiny set of hands.  As I am discovering more and more in my life, those tiny hands are my greatest motivation to become a better and better man for the future.  Both hers and mine.