I posted a new column to Backwash: Bewitching Vagabond this morning.
Planning the Things You Can Still Do
It’s a whole new year, nothing has been painted on it, nothing has sratched it’s shiny surface and there are no treadmarks yet. What will you do with it? Any grand plans or even nice, tidy small ones?
Here we are, all getting older, some of us older than others. Some of us have limited resources and some have enough that they can take them for granted. Some people are feeling sad and lonely and others are feeling crowded and overburdened. However you are feeling, take stock of what you have.
I was feeling kind of down about how things are going and the time that has passed and the resources I have left. I began to think about things I wanted to do and likely wouldn’t or can’t now. So I started making a list, on paper (at least digital paper) and writing out ideas about what I could still accomplish and what I have passed the expiry date on.
You may think there is always hope and never give up on a dream, all that overly optimistic and rose coloured glasses stuff. That’s not true though. Keep yourself in the land of reality. Some things you can’t do when you’re no longer 20 and quite so perky and light. I am very much not likely to have children of my own and that hurts. I’m being a very good Aunt but it’s not the same. I will feel this a lot more in the years to come, it’s not so bad right now. I think that is the biggest thing I can no longer accomplish. I haven’t even completely crossed it off the list because it’s too hard to let go.
There are a lot of other things I want to do still. Some I have done and forgot until I started thinking and listing it all, formally and officially. I have traveled more than I gave myself credit for. Not all the places I would like but those are still places I could get to.
I would like to have a successful (my standards for success) business of some kind. Something creative which I could do for myself and feel I had done it myself. I’m not really good about asking or accepting help, which isn’t always a good thing. I enjoy different aspects of business, not paperwork and taxes but promotion and advertising interests me. Those are opportunities to be creative too.
One goal I’m not so sure about is finding someone to grow old with. I’ve tried and I’m getting really discouraged. It’s hard being rejected for shallow and superficial reasons. It’s hard finding out how shallow and small so many people are. This just seems so backwards to me and no matter how often I come across it I am always surprised when it happens. Why do people care so much about small things? Then I wonder if I am the same but don’t see it. I hope not. I try not to be and I prefer to be as optimistic as I can too. I don’t look back much because whatever you learned from that is in your head, currently and whatever happened back there is unchangeable now.
I do have things to look forward to for 2007. Things which I have to set in motion myself. None are much more than little buds of prospective opportunities now. I have learned to keep a lot of my buds to myself. People tend to shoot them down, with good intentions yet I’ve found myself on the road to hell so many times I don’t want any more well intentioned advice.
So I am making my list and deciding what I can do from it in the coming year and what I need to do to start the process for each thing I want to do. It’s the first day of a new year. So much is out there if you keep your eyes open, your head clear and you listen at least as much as you talk. As we get older we need to watch for our minds narrowing in on what our own needs are and what our own sense of right is. Don’t cut off something new or different just because it isn’t perfect or what you are used to.
Good luck to us all.