Happy New Year!

I haven't done New Years Resolutions for years which is weird because I understand the importance of goal-setting. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would start talking about our resolutions days before NYE. We'd make lists, discuss and edit them. I don't know how we were so inspired to do that but somehow we were so much smarter then.

So, if I was having a coffee with friends right now, we'd probably be talking about the nice or douchey guys we met at the party/bar last night and thinking up our new year's resolutions. Sorry if some of these are long and rambling.

1. Get back into shape - genetic high blood pressure & foot issues (bunions and damaged nerves) cause me grief and pain when I do any activity, the blood pressure meds aren't perfect and one of the side effects is fatigue. I feel fatigue and, instead of going to the gym like I would've in the past, I use that, and my sore feet, as an excuse to lie on the couch and watch 3 hours of TV - with a glass of wine and a bag of Miss Vickie's salt & vinegar chips! I don't even LIKE potato chips but the blood pressure meds take the salt out of my system so now I crave salt. NOT FAIR.

2. No more saying NOT FAIR! My number 2 resolution is to "suck it up princess" (bad traffic, job I hate, winter weather, etc....) and get on with living. My life is actually pretty great but the past few years, I've forgotten that and become a miserable middle-aged woman. Not how I pictured myself growing old at any point in my life. The b.s. stops here before I'm out on the street, yelling at kids to "get off my lawn!"

3. Sketch and paint and "create" more. I created art all of my life but didn't realize how much of an emotional regulator it was until I stopped for a decade. It wasn't intentional but I let other things fill my time - they were valuable and important things but I should have also set aside time every day to do a quick sketch, write a blog post, paint a birthday card, etc. Sitting and looking at something, then breaking it down into it's basic components, lines and shading, is the best kind of meditation: it slows the outside world, mutes the static of your day to day and gives you perspective on what's important. I've already made a start on this one and signed up for an online drawing course at Sketchbook Skool, I'm sketching every couple of days but still not at the point where I'm doing it every day.

4. Play my guitar and sing every day. Like painting, I used to play my guitar every day, learning new songs, working out the tabs and chords. It was very satisfying. That also changed in the last decade, for the same reasons as above. However, I have a friend who has pulled me into his music circle, coincidentally whenever I needed it most. He started a band in the early 2000s and we played together every Sunday night. He and the other guys were all in their early twenties (he's just a year older than my son) so they eventually got married, had kids and moved away, no more band. Without that motivation, I stopped playing regularly.
About 10 years ago, shortly after the band broke up, my friend had a couple of seizures and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It was inoperable so they just filled him with chemo for several years, trying to keep it from getting bigger. In spite of poisoning him with chemicals, a week before Christmas last year, the doctors told him the tumour was getting bigger - they had to do emergency surgery on this "inoperable" tumor. They opened up his brainbox and cut out a chunk of the tumour. After more unsuccessful rounds of chemo, they've told my friend that the tumour continues to grow and he has run out of options. No more chemo, he's on an experimental drug with little hope of it doing anything more than (possibly) managing the size and growth rate of the tumour. My friend and his wife have gotten their affairs in order, wills and stuff. They have two boys under the age of seven. His wife has taken an indefinite leave from her job. When I asked her if there was any way I could help out she said, please just come over and jam with him. He loves playing the guitar and is amazing at it, genuinely talented. Right now no one else is available (kids and wives and mortgages). So once again, my friend has pulled me back into music just when I need it. We rent a rehearsal studio in Toronto and get together to play - occasionally joined by another guy, Neal Young (no kidding, that's his name). I never miss a Tuesday. Even if I'm tired or the traffic to his house and the studio is terrible (it's always terrible), I enjoy it so much. Right now I commit my time to music for my friend but I'd also like to commit for myself so that I'm playing every day, not just Tuesdays.

5. Dance at least once a week. One thing I miss a lot is just dancing; mindless, sweaty, dance til you can't dance any more, dancing. It used to be that a big group of us would go to the club and dance for hours. Toronto was great in the eighties and nineties, clubs were just big halls with a coat check, a bar and a bathroom. Dancing is the best work out ever! I'm too old to go to a club now - this isn't a confidence thing, clubs are for the young and there's nothing wrong with that. I can dance in my house, at weddings with other old wrinklies or even at the gym in pseudo-aerobic classes. Mostly in my house though. I'm going to dedicate an hour to just putting on old cds or a good ipod mix and dancing!

6. Pay closer attention to relationships. I'm not sure that I value the people I encounter the way I should. (I'm searching for a less awkward way to say what I mean here).

7. Stop talking so much and get on with things. Okay, enough talking. I'm going to go do a sketch, go for a walk and then play some guitar!