Living-Deliberately.com

Happy New Year!!! One of my very favorite days of the year…I like it better than christmas, better than my birthday. I like fresh starts, Anne-Shirley-ish reminders that, “tomorrow is a brand new day, with no mistakes”, chances to compare what has been with what is wanted and to make goals and adjustments and strategies for challenges. Today is a day for articulating deliberateness, full of gusto and intention. I love new calendars, new lists, hope and promise and anticipation.

At the end of 2007 I saw nearly everything in my life change. From weekend to weekend I don’t know where I’ll be…and yet we had a beautiful continuity with love, tradition, and memories. It has been a time for finding comfort in the intangible, for deep breaths knowing from experience that this grief will pass with time, for joy and discovery in the simple little things returning to me from long ago. I’ve conquered old fears (at least to some extent), adapted where I thought it was impossible, and opened doorways long in existance at the end of my mind’s hall but that seemed forever closed. With a year ending like that, it feels unlikely that the next will be mundane.

At the end of 2007:

What used to be: I loved music, movie soundtracks, new releases, multiple genres.

What has been: no fm radio, no mp3 technology, a quiet life with radio talk shows and occaissional music finds, usually via rhapsody.com or youtube.

What has become: burned CD’s from friends, a handed-down mp3 player loaded with music belieing a musical-kindred-spiritedness that was a beautiful surprise, and a car radio on the fm dial in multiple places, via a sort of hack involving an adapter and a CD player.

The result: MUSIC!!! New music, old music, lyrics for every emotion and thought, Orthodox worship when I can’t go to church, soundtracks that sweep. Music heals, helps one cope, express, and ventilate. It’s like soothing balm on cracked hands.

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What used to be: airplanes are large metal objects that have no business hurtling through the sky, and if they come down, we ought not be surprised.

What has been: major anxiety attacks when needing to fly…afraid of every bump and jostle, the fear palpable that I’d be in the next headline, having fallen and burned and crashed.

What has become: “it’s a like a bus”, so said a friend, and in so doing, gave me a great measure of freedom. Buses sway and move and make noises and really, an airplane isn’t so different. Sheer time saved makes flying worth the effort, even with crabby holiday travelers. Each flight gets a little easier and I no longer shake and tremble.

The result: I get “there” faster. I feel the world opening to me. I’ve let go of trying to control something that never was in my hands to control.

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Other changes were seeing my Total Money Makeover Beater turn over the 200k mileage mark, setting me on my way to reach my goal of taking the same Dodge Caravan engine and transmission over 269,000. The “Get Divorced Weight Loss Result”, that a friend described to me a year or so ago hasn’t failed…there’s no faster, nor more painful way to loose 15 lbs without even trying. But the flip side of the weight loss is that it’s better than sitting around getting fat and depressed and actually helps motivate me along on the Triathlon Goal.

It’s where I am: a divorcing, single mother of four children with a bad back and a slew of hopes and dreams, hanging onto the encouraging words of others who get me through every day. There’s adventure between every sunrise and set, there is the ordinary mixed with the incredible, there is the Thing To Deal With and the little moments of respite, be they a quick sketch with charcoal, a few chords on a friend’s guitar, or a new food I’ve waited years to try.

Goals for 2008:

(obviously not a complete list):

• continue to learn and train as necessary for my first sprint-level Triathlon; I want to do my first in the spring of ‘09 so the bulk of my learning and prep should be within this year.
• obtain and learn to play the guitar (leftover goal from last year, completely untouched).
• read fiction again this summer.
• paint again.
• hit my buisiness goal.
• transition my children healthfully, teaching them to live honestly, loving them patiently.
• continue, and to some extent return to, eating whole, traditonal foods prepared at home, wherever home comes to be.

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My calendar this year is a collection of Rodin’s sculptures. I love them because they hold in time moments that are usually fluid, that catch our breath in our throats, that translate much larger than they tangibly seem. Catching the emotion of life in solid form was Rodin’s brilliance, taking motion and holding it, turning it, even as we notice and move onward. That sort of expresses what I want this year to hold…moments kept for thier profundity, even as take each step beyond.

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