Onward & Upward! Mush! Yah, Mule!

I do not make New Year's Resolutions.

I used to, but too many years of feeling the failure by mid-January of things I didn't, or couldn't, really commit to do to begin with, has cured me of that. That, and the fact that, like most females in the U.S., I grew up with "go on a diet" at the top of my peer-pressured list during all tween and teen years, makes me scoff at such lists.

First off, screw the dieting! Screw the worries of being seen as fat! Screw punishing ourselves for being ourselves, and not some skinny, bony thing on the pages of "fashion" magazines! (Hey, if we could all airbrush before we hit the streets, that might just make it okay, but...I don't think so, even then.) Besides, as a society we seem to have forgotten a very simple rule of biological imperative: LIVING BODIES DO NOT LIKE TO BE STARVED! And they sure as hell do not like to be threatened with starvation, which is what most bodies see a diet as. The word "die" is there for a reason, y'all. And bodies defend themselves...by doing what? Say it with me: holding onto reserves to use in case of starvation. I think the world needs to get a more retro-view of bodies...I think it is time for the aesthetic of Rubens to come back into vogue...in his day, voluptuous women were HOT...having curves meant you could afford to eat, so you would survive, so you were THE means of continuation of the species. Besides, curves are sexy.

But I digress (often, you will find)...

I do not make resolutions for the New Year anymore.
I still have lists, but they aren't the resolutions of the type generally expected.
Last year, I think I had some things like "Get a rug for the living room" and "Journal more", "learn a language" and a few work-oriented tasks that I should have gotten to. Some I actually DID.

THIS year, I scribbled my list-always-in-progress on a recycled sheet from my 2008 Dog-Page-A-Day calendar from work. It is living in the January pocket of my new Live With Intention 2009 planner as we speak.

Here it is, so far:

New Habits
go slow
walk the dog
drink H2O
think twice, spend once
eat when hungry, stop when full
move sometimes

Yep, in the last 21 days, that is what I've come up with. (Notice I have not RESOLVED to do anything. I don't need the pressure. I'm a single mom living in California---I HAVE ENOUGH PRESSURE!) More fluid. Less imperative. More things I would like to accomplish more days than not, rather than regimented demands to make on myself, and punish myself for not doing.

And how am I doing, in the world of ardent non-resolution-keeping?

Well, starting my first day back at work, I implemented go slow. My boss was very proud. By day two, she had to tell me to take a break and slow down again, but I have since managed slower more days than not. Constantly on the move is a hard, hard habit to break, especially when one's mind is never still, though I am giving it my best shot.

I still haven't walked the dog this month, between being sick for a few weeks and depressed one of them, and the fact that it is dark by the time I get home...and it IS the rainy season, and my pug thinks water is acid, I suspect, and worries about her beautiful bod eaten away. Getting her out into the back yard to pee is difficult enough right now, even when the ground is wet and nothing is falling from the sky anymore.

Drink water...well, I take my meds with water. Except last night, when I downed them with a Smirnoff Ice (REALLY bad day...meltdown verging.) Drinking water for pleasure is not yet my habit. Wild Cherry Pepsi is my crack, my lover, my lifesblood, and some days, my Goddess!

Think twice, spend once: ehhh...maybe once I have some money to manage, that will kick more into play. Sometimes I struggle for enough change for toilet paper. January is like that right now. How much is a ticket for not renewing your plates? Dear Traffic Gods, please help keep me under the radar this month...

Doing well on the eat when hungry thing...today I even stopped when I was full! But yesterday my period kicked into high gear, and I ate whatever I could get into my mouth without actually leaving my desk chair. But that is okay, too. It happens. And those Candy Cane Kisses were taunting me, dude! They've been taunting me since Christmas week. They were lucky to live this long. They only lived because I left them in my desk during the shutdown. Lucky little shits. (The last once got it today.)

Move sometimes. Right now, all I can really do is move into other positions when the cramps hit, and walk to the ibuprofen bottle, and call it exercise. But I DID kinda boogie into the bathroom with a song in my head early on tonight, so there is hope for another day.

And here's the one that didn't even MAKE the list...start a blog. Find a place where I can put my mind vomit out into the world instead of leaving it bottled up, squishing about in my head to make me crazy, so I can stop mumbling to myself so much in public. ("She doesn't LOOK homeless!") Find a place to have my say, exorcise my demons, be silly and ridiculous and opinionated, and occasionally have a good old hissy-fit and rant...no one has to read it, but I did it, and that is what is important. And if someone DOES read it, maybe one day, some little globber of my ramblings could help someone, or brighten their day, maybe even make them smile or let a giggle escape. And if no one reads it? That's still okay...it is in the creation that the magic and the healing commence.

So sayeth the Jellyfish...

And on we go...