I resolve (about four months late) to finally publish and own my New Year's resolution

I resolve to feel less guilty about everything. I grew up surrounded by Catholic guilt. Catholic guilt has nothing on "mommies trying to be everything to everyone" guilt. And yes this resolution is now getting published months late, but I will not apologize for that. See, I'm sticking to my decision.

In the past year-plus, I've read a crap ton of mommy blogs and articles. A lot are awesome. A bunch are funny. Some make me feel awful. I read it and then I read the comments and then I feel like I cannot speak without offending someone. They touch on everything: things you shouldn't say to someone who is overweight, underweight, pregnant, married, single, the mom of twins, the mom of six kids, the mom of adopted kids, the woman who has no children. I'm exhausted. I've learned to keep my pie hole shut. And that makes me sad. So I've resolved to speak and think with good intentions and also not feel bad about choices I'm making in life. I'm going to own what I'm doing, how I'm living and I'm going to support others doing the same.

I remember reading an article about why you shouldn't ask someone if they're having children or if they would like to have more children. I thought, oh shoot, I've asked that. I'm a bad person. But I'm not. I didn't ask it to pry or bring up painful issues in their lives. I asked it because I was curious, interested and because I care. I also knew that if that person said she didn't want to talk about it, I would respect it. Heck, if she said, I feel uncomfortable about that issue, I would understand.

I lost my father to cancer when I was 23. I can't imagine someone asking questions about my father and then being offended and thinking they should know it's a tough topic for me. That's not how we connect to people and understand them and become better people. I remember one of the best things a friend said to me after my dad died was, "I didn't call right away because I had no idea what to say." Honesty. Loved it. It was real.

I've also spent too much of my life looking through the world in passive-aggressive colored sunglasses. Someone will ask, "oh your son has a cough" and I immediately whine to my husband, "they think I should take him to the doctor" "why are they questioning how I parent." Then I feel guilty about being a bad parent. But maybe instead of getting ticked off, I should have said, "you seem to have experience in this department, is there anything you think I should do?" That's if I respect their opinion. If I don't I should "yes."

Let's face it, I'm not just doing it to be a better person, I'm doing it to save some time. 2015 flew by. Too many minutes got wasted on feeling guilty. And maybe if I stopped feeling guilty about not working out, I could actually spend time working out.