Worthwhile Changes

So here we go.

January 2, 2016. Doesn't quite have the ring or the weight to it that January 1 does.

This is where the hard part comes in. Trying to keep the shine on.

It is so easy to slip back into the same old same old immediately after the holidays. This is the mistake that all of us make and it is a fatal one.

Five weeks of explosive celebrating - Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's - and then what?

I had to run out to Shaw's yesterday to pick up last minute supplies for the dinner gathering, and as I walked into the store I felt like a selfish ass.

I was looking at all the people working in the store - on January 1 - and thinking how awful that is. To ring in a new year and be forced to work the very next day.

It is a reality today but it is bad for the soul.

Some - like myself and Carol - have the weekend off, and that is precious.

Somehow you have to find a way to keep the magic working, to nurture the spirit of change and newness towards survival.

It is all about change.

I am thinking hard this year. Committing hard.

I feel a strange sense of power and inspiration; a solid sense that time is wasting, moving faster than ever, that my life hangs in the balance.

Might be coming from the huge sense of loss that has been stewing in me since the end of 2014 and March of 2015. Might be coming from the fact that I just completed my 62nd year on this planet, and 63 is already humming along.

Relentlessly.

I have thoughts and decisions swirling. No resolutions. Resolutions are cliched.

I am considering in a more philosophical bent; bigger ideas instead of black and white measurable goals.

I'm thinking Carol and I will spend more time with our sons and their women. Casual time. Unforced, unscheduled real time.

"Hey, it's Friday night - mind if we stop over with some pizza for a short visit? And please don't dust the end tables."

I'm thinking I am going to spend more time with my brother. We will find clubs and restaurants that are conveniently located between us, so we can enjoy live music with some regularity and go out for a quiet dinner of conversation.

I am going to retire.

Period.

I will find a part time job to augment social security and then lower the boom on this ridiculous, soul sucking job I now suffer with.

I will listen to music more often. Much more often.

I have an ipod loaded with  music I love and I hardly ever listen to it. How stupid is that?

Gonna watch more movies. Again, I love movies but I just don't watch enough of them.

I am toying with the idea of picking up the instruments again. Guitar and trumpet.

Why not? The music is in me and the talent is there - why not release it?

Yeah, I am going to lose weight and exercise more, but those are everyday commitments - not things to be embraced by my soul.

Gonna write more. Gonna try to find a way to make some spare change from writing as part of the retirement scenario.

How can I not? Writing is my number one release and it comes directly from my soul. Keeping it bottled up invites fatal explosions

If I look back at previous new year's commitments I am sure I would be embarrassed. Embarrassed to see some of (hopefully not all) of the same intentions captured in print.

Doesn't matter.

You have to be ready for change. You have to recognize the impulse and have the drive to act upon it.

Let me be honest here. Every birthday pulls me closer to the abyss. That is true of every birthday for every living thing, but it carries a lot more weight when that birthday is 62 as opposed to 21.

I am afraid.

Afraid to die having wasted my life.

I feel fresh in 2016. I feel inspired. The amazing New Year's Eve and New Year's Day/my birthday that Carol and I just experienced has a lot to do with that.

Jesus Christ - we laughed a lot and changed the routine - celebrated differently and enjoyed it all more.

I am kind of free flowing here today. Laying out some thoughts that are bumping up against the inside of my skull. If I come up with any other changes I want to make I will let you know. I realize you are just dying to know what I am thinking.

That's it. That's where I am at on January 2, 2016.

Thinking and feeling.

Pretty cool.