New year's rulins
31 December 2011 05:50 AM Categories: Animal/vegetable/mineral
It was a thin night of sleep, my dreams kept poking through the weak spots in my consciousness and my heart refused to leave me alone. It reminded me of its presence, knocking at my chest, pushing its rapid beat into my head, my fingertips, my toes. These reminders of life aren't so bad: I am here, I exist, my heartbeat is palpable underneath my skin. The blood continues to flow through this interconnected highway of arteries and veins. It feeds me.
The moments are fleeting and beautiful. I need to stay in them, to experience them fully, while letting them go all at once. Each letter is a moment, each word, each breath and they propel me into the future whether I want them to or not.
In anticipation of the coming January, the long remains of winter, I've been thinking about writing a happiness list, a list of things and actions and ways of being that will keep me in the moment while reminding me that I have a future. What better time to start making that list than New Year's Eve? I suppose these are resolutions, though I've never thought of myself as a resolution sort of person.
Happiness List
- Read more novels: they remind me of the depth and meaning of life and also take me out of myself
- Get out of the house more often to write or just to free up mental space
- Avoid all glowing electronic appliances -- the computer, the smartphone, the rare TV exposure -- after 8:00 p.m
- Keep open to other people; listen to what they say and how they say it without projecting my own thoughts and anxieties on to their words, their silences, or their body language
- Assume the best, but pay attention to warning signs that the assumption may be wrong and act accordingly
- Stop wasting food
- Be authentic to my emotions without wallowing in them
- Recognize my needs and give them a voice: they have a right to exist and I have a right to fulfill them as long as I do no harm
- Listen carefully and respond thoughtfully when the time is right
- Be grateful
- Be gracious
- Trust when trust is merited, but don't make the requirements for trust so onerous that I trust no one
- Be trustworthy
- Be reliable
- Give more money away
- Respond more quickly to email from friends
- Talk on the phone to people other than my immediate family
- Return Adam's calls promptly
- Stop telling telemarketers that Jennifer isn't home and start asking them to remove me from their lists
- Let the love flow ... when that feeling of warmth emanates from my heart (it's happening right now, it's lovely), nurture it; direct it to the people I love, the people I like, and even those who have caused me pain
- Forgive myself
- Understand that everyone has their own troubles, no matter how smooth things might appear from the outside
- Be compassionate
- Do more of the things that scare me (a return to driving lessons, for example)
- Recognize the core of strength, the length of pliable steel that centers me and has kept me protected since childhood
- Teach myself new forms of self-protection and preservation that keep me open and connected to family and friends
Sure, I don't have items like "Help win war -- fight facism" or "Wash teeth if any," but I am no Woody Guthrie. And this is just the beginning of my list, a start, a way to frame 2012.
Happy new year to you. I wish you happiness, luck and love. Be brave, be honest, be kind. I'll try my best to do the same.
Woody Guthrie's 1942 New Year's Resolutions courtesy of Boing Boing, with thanks to Holly for bringing it to my attention.
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