Thoughts about 2011

My husband Tony is a person who dreams & sets goals, and then pursues those dreams & goals with a great deal of focus and determination. If he dreams it and has even a small measure of control over the outcome, his dream becomes reality. He's a great motivating example in that area.

Tony has a nice habit of asking me, "Are you excited?" I reply, "About what?" and then he answers, "About anything." For too long, I've answered "no" and meant it. I haven't been excited, and it's time for that to change.

I've been thinking about living more in 2011. Somehow, I feel like I've gotten out of the habit of actively living & have been doing more subsisting... just getting by... existing day to day. I'm such a creature of habit that I've allowed my world to get smaller & smaller due to a variety of reasons: fear, comfort, complacency, financial worries, being inside my own head too much, being unsure of my place in my small world & the world at large, being unsure if anything I do has meaning or purpose or an affect whatsoever... just being unsure in general.

The older I get, the longer the days are - they're so often filled with tension & stress & fatigue - but the years pass with a blur until I'm unable to distinguish 2007 from 2008 from 2009 from 2010. I want to make an adjustment before another blurry year flies by.

So far, I've:

• accepted a small work task that I would normally pass on
• made arrangements to meet an online friend in person
• signed up for a design class
• looked into amateur singing lessons

All small steps, but steps forward nonetheless. The next time Tony asks me if I'm excited, I can say "yes."