January 5, 2011

Wednesday

The note on the Holidailies portal startled me. “Jan. 5: Last day!”

I thought tomorrow was the last day.

It doesn’t matter, really. I had an uneven, unsatisfactory experience of Holidailies this year. I posted only on about half the days, I didn’t read as many of others’ posts as I usually do, and I didn’t interact with other writers at all. Others, I know, have had a similar experience, including the originator of the concept. Maybe it was an off year for everybody.

The best thing to do is to sign off, thank Jette and Chip once again for being willing to get it up and running. I shall take a deep breath, straighten my spine and square my shoulders, and move forward into the Quality Life I envision for myself.

I’ve had that vision for a long time. Here’s what it looked like in 2006:

January 3, 2006

Wednesday

Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.

— Habbakuk 1:2

. . . These are my New Year’s Resolutions, the same ones I’ve made for, oh, more years than I want to say.

The list began as a response to an exercise from Lesléa Newman’s book, SomeBody to Love: A Guide to Loving the Body You Have. The book is a lively and useful collection of writing prompts designed to get you to think about food and health and weight and appearance. One suggestion is to make a list of six or seven things you’d like to achieve in the next year or so. They don’t have to be weight related.

My own title, “The Six Goals of a Quality Life,” is a tribute to an accountability scheme that Pennsylvania educators had to follow some years ago. Every curriculum and every lesson plan had to have annotations showing how the activity helped students achieve The Twelve Goals of a Quality Education.

I wrote about The Goals and the origin of the name last year, and when I looked up the piece to get its URL I realized that I was about to write the very same piece!! So not only do I make the same goals year after year, I write the same wry observations about not having achieved them and the same hopeful notes about being determined to change. Aack!! What is wrong with me!!

So I’m listing them one more time, on this site so I will have to see the title every time I open my editing page, even though I can run quickly by.

The Six Goals of a Quality Life are:

Lose weight and improve health. Fatten my Gallivanting Fund so that my trips are paid for two years in advance. Develop as a fiction writer. Complete art projects. Have more contact with friends. Declutter the house.

There they are, at least the bare bones of them. There are some vague words. What does “develop” mean? How much “more contact” is significant? And don’t they all come down to the same thing: Follow through, dwell in accomplishment instead of possibility, just do it.

This is The Year I Turn 64. Will you still need me, will you still feed me? I need you, my readers and my friends, who feed me with your confidence and your confidences. Thank you for reading, so much, so often.

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