I know, I know I’m supposed to write about food. Yet I digress. I’ve been thinking about the new year. About what it will hold for us, about what I want it to be. I’ve been thinking about resolutions, but I refuse to make any. Resolutions are for packed gyms in january, once again empty by march. No what I have been thinking about are goals. So many of them bouncing around my brain, I’ve decided to choose just one.

To live without fear.

I think without is a bold statement. With less is probably more accurate. You see I’ve always been a worrier. Ever since grade school, when I came home and my dad told me my grandma Ruth had died. This strange feeling came over me. I remember being in the car later on, looking out the window and truly realizing what “died” meant. It was a cloudy, frightening, anxious feeling. It was the first time I really remember being horribly afraid.

It’s stuck with me. I’ve lived out a lot of my years afraid(with the exception of my idiotically rebellious teenage years). Worrying about consequences, about the future and the past.

And now there’s this tiny girl. And I worry even more. About her health, her future, her beautiful little heart. I worry about going back to the hospital, her being so much more aware and how awful it might be for her. I worry when she sweats too much, or when she gets a little bluer when it’s cold.

I find myself playing out scenarios that have yet to happen in my head, trying to capture the what ifs so I’m prepared. I get stuck dwelling in the past, trying to remember how exactly things happened and feeling overwhelming guilt.

After being discharged from the hospital and they kept my little girl, we slept at home. For four nights. Four nights my baby was alone, in a tiny isolette, with no one who loved her nearby. I think about those nights and my chest feels heavy. I need to forgive myself for those nights, for taking care of my own broken body, to be strong enough for her later. It was a selfish decision, no matter how much it was the right one, it makes me feel hollow thinking about it.

Writing it down makes it seem more real. Somehow less of a fog. Makes the guilt feel a little less heavy. Forgiving myself is the first step in being less afraid. Mourning the loss of the experience I expected is the next.

My husband and I were talking the other day, about how much we did to prepare to be parents and to prepare to give birth. We read all the books, took the classes, wrote a plan… Nothing goes according to plan. My husband looked at me the other day and said “no one prepared us for the possibility that she might not live”. And that was it. We never thought that was something we had to worry about. Until it was.

But she’s here now. And she’s growing faster then I could have ever imagined, and she’s beautiful and perfect in every way.

So this year I’m working on fear. Working on no longer being ruled by it. It’s funny, last year I was working on living life without worrying about finances. Now I could care less if I’m broke. My husband says its because I’ve replaced it with bigger fears. Don’t tell him, but my husband is right most of the time.

If I can be more present every day, I feel like these worries and fears will get squashed like the bugs they are. I know that they will never truly go away, after all pests just keep breeding more pests, but living in the moment, taking it all in will keep my mind from spiraling.

I realize I’ve gone off on quite a tangent here, and I hesitate on even posting this. With all the blogs I read, and everyone posting their New Years hopes and dreams it made me think. 2013 is going to be my best year yet, and I’m doing everything in my power to make that happen.