2008: The Year In Review

I sit here in C.'s kitchen the blinds open enough to give the baby amaryllis a bit of daylight, so that I see the snow coming down and adding to the several inches that accumulated since early this morning. I've just finished one of my all-time favorite breakfasts: two pieces of whole grain toast, one with butter and the other with peanut butter and jam. I should also have a piece of fruit, but I'm kind of full right now, so those bananas will just have to keep turning brown over there. And I polished off a small bottle of Starbucks frappuccino, that high-calorie substitute for the hot stuff. 

It's the last day of 2008, the year I turned 45--by my reckoning the halfway point in my life. (I was once told, via tarot, that I would live to be very, very old, so I plan to surpass my Great Grandma D., who died a few years early at 87 because she refused to ask for help. Let that me a lesson to you, susansinclair!) This past spring was, I think, the conclusion of a two-year spiritual growth spurt that began in late March of 2006, when Ms. J and I split, Governor Jon Corzine announced a hiring freeze thus ending my chances at keeping my job for the next school year, and I faced the hard reality of a few years of serious denial regarding relationship and dissertation. (And what is a dissertation, but an intellectual relationship with one's self?)

When I moved to Syracuse in May of 2006, I began the long process of a) bawling my eyes out, b) getting my s**t together, and c) facing reality--no, really, really facing reality. The most important decision I made in that period (in addition to the usual sorts of affirmations, like "Yes, I am worthy of love/success/whatever") was to never make another decision out of fear. My choices from then on had to be positive ones: to choose to move toward something, rather than away. 

I won't say this has been easy. I still spin with anxiety from time to time (someday I'll tell you about Christmas 2008...but not today), over things both worthy of serious consideration and things completely and utterly unimportant, over things under my control and things I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of influencing, even indirectly. And, of course, this decision has spawned a new set of anxieties: "Did I make that decision for the right reasons? Or am I afraid of something? Am I doing this to please someone else?" So, that's me. Live with it. Or not. 

Of the two major decisions I made in 2008--to be with C. and my job--I can definitively assert that I made these decisions for all the right reasons. Which is why this turned out to be such an excellent year.

Mulligan resolutions for 2009

A conversation recently ensued on a friend's Facebook page regarding New Year's resolutions, those odd promises we make to ourselves to be Better People. Or used to: I stopped making them a while back, realizing that anything worth doing is probably worth doing now, rather than waiting until after the Overindulgence Holidays. (Unless it's a promise to stop eating rich foods--that's really an unfair promise to make, particularly if you're going to the GF's family's for Christmas, where the tradition is antipasto and lasagne.)

Anyway, where was I? New Year's resolutions. So, this Very Smart Man (doesn't narrow my friends down much, does it?) noted that his 2009 resolutions looked rather familiar, implying that he was still trying to do some of those things he'd promised himself in past years. The conversation led to this suggestion: Mulligan resolutions.

According to Wikipedia, in a totally unsourced and thus not-exactly-authoritative article, outside of competitive endeavors generally refer to do-overs--an opportunity to redo something one has somehow muffed. (This is different from grade school do-overs, which were generally used to resolve arguments about whether the square ball was in or out.) So, a Mulligan resolution is a second shot at whatever it was you had wanted to do or change or accomplish or stop doing or whatever.

So, rather than making new resolutions for 2009, I offer the following Mulligan resolutions:

1. Drink more water.

2. Do more yoga.

3. Get more exercise.

4. Try new things.

5. Say yes the first time.