One word. My word.

I recently read a blog post by my favorite blogger who talked about what word she'd like to use to define her life for 2012.  It got me thinking about what one word I'd say was my word?  It's a pretty intimidating choice.

What if I pick the wrong word...........like say...........joy............and then have the worst year of my life?  And try as I might to be joyful in all things I'd have to look back at the year come January 31st, 2012 and know I failed miserably.  I hate that feeling. Plus.........let's be honest, I've never bragged about being a glass half full kind of girl.

What if I picked the word health........and remembered I loathe exercising.......although hot yoga is winning me over one sweaty session at a time.

What if I picked the word relaxed and told my husband that's what I'd picked?  I'd have to endure him reminding me that I'm the least relaxed person he knows.......the amount of times I have to get out of bed before actually going to bed because I've forgotten to do "one more thing" like dust the coffee table, pick up my boots, start the dishwasher, edit one more photo, send one more e-mail, write down one more DIY idea for Mom Colored Glasses, or check on Georgia attests to that.

So, what word to pick?

I've been thinking about this for about twenty four hours now--because that's what I do....I obsess.  See why relaxed would really be all kinds of wrong for me?  All during yoga last night (which I was supposed to be relaxing through--whatever--an hour and a half of uninterrupted think time while I sweat my brains out and wonder why the guy next to me wearing a speedo didn't think to buy some razors--I'm thinking.....about a lot of things.....good things) I thought.

But here's what I've come up with.

Courage.

And it's not this knock down, take the wind out of you creative word, I know that.  It's not unique or innovative.  It's not uncharted territory.  I know all of that.  But, it's about what I need to get better at.  I thrive on the safe, the known, the tried and true.  I cling to predictability and stability.  And while all of those things are good sometimes, when you love them too much, they are a road block to something great.  Something that you might never have known about, had you not had the courage to try something new.

So courage is my word.  I don't want to look back at 2012 and wish that I'd taken some bigger risks--on a personal front and a professional one.  I think back to the things in my life that I've passed on because they seemed a little scary, or took some effort to make happen, or I didn't know how all of the details would shake out so I decided, "that's a no-go."  Stupid.

But here's the thing......the one super courageous thing that I've done in the last three years with a lot of reservation, but I dove in anyway was adopting Georgia.  When Chris and I made the call to an adoption agency in September of 2008 to inquire as to how to start the process with them I was very hesitant.  I thought maybe kids just weren't for us after five years of infertility treatments that resulted in...............less money in our savings account and some scars on my stomach.........and I really thought I was okay with that.  I loved my job and the potential that it held for advancement, I loved our life and our "drop whatever we're doing and head to Chicago for the weekend," or "yeah.....let's go to Mexico again for spring break," mind-set.  But there was always this little nagging in the back of my head that told me I'd regret it if we didn't go for it.  So we did.  Against our standard M.O. we took that bull by the horns and didn't look back.  And we second guessed ourselves the whole way through, "how can we afford this, is it really responsible to spend all of of our money, what if there are no birth-parents that we feel like are a good match, what if we get a baby and the birth-parents change their mind, what if I'm a horrible mom, what if we look at each other once the baby is born and think, 'why did we do this,'?"

But guess what?

It was the best thing we ever did.  EVER.

And it took courage.  It took throwing all of our reservations and what-ifs and logic out the window.  It took looking at my 'cons' list, that consisted of very sensical and well thought out reasons not to pursue domestic adoption, and putting a big X through it.

And that big X was the best thing I ever did.
Because I got this.

Who is now this........

She's the reason that Chris and I do everything that we do.

So this year I'm focusing on courage.  And more X's through scaredy-cat cons lists.  I'm hoping for some new leaves and some incredible growth as a result.

It paid off pretty well that one time, right?

What's your word?
Make it a good one.