Amazing things will happen…

So, my friend, CC, writes books.

His latest book, Amazing Things Will Happen, is pretty awesome. If you know CC in real life or through any of his blogs, it’s not necessarily new material, but it’s a nice reminder of how to live your life so… ahem… amazing things will happen.

One of his things is to find three words and then focus on them through the year.

My three words, and explanations, follow:

SELF
The bipolar was an absolute bitch to me this past year. It almost forced me to quit my job and go on SSDI. It almost hospitalized me. I vow to take much better care of my mental health this year. No more over committing at work. It fucked up my work life balance and was key in the downward spiral.

Then there’s the physical side of the equation. I want to do the GORUCK Challenge. I still can’t explain the why, except to say that it became something that resonates with me and it’s something I need to do. Well, it’s pretty obvious to me that I’m not going to survive it without some help, so enter the personal trainer. All my physical health goals - lose weight, more strength - are specific to the GRC, but I also know that they will benefit me in the long run.

FAMILY
I went with family as opposed to relationships because I have a lot of friends who I consider family. I don’t spend nearly enough time with them and recent events have shown me that it’s not enough to say that person’s like a sister/brother to me. I need to prove it. I need to figure out how to put myself in their lives and let them into mine. I don’t want to lose any more people because I sit on the sidelines and let them live their lives around me.

Yesterday, I did lunch with a person I absolutely adore, a brother, who I had lost touch with. The usual excuses were there (work, kid, baby momma) and we both acknowledged how easy it was to pull away and get sucked into your personal drama. We both admitted that we needed each other. We both promised to keep in touch more often. Will we? Yesterday’s lunch was a great start and I’m looking forward to many more.

CREATE
Another one with a second word… I was going to go with projects instead, but create sounds better because most of my projects are creative. The American Girl fencing uniform, finally getting a new website off the ground, taking more photos, etc. It’s all the stuff I want to do every year, and most years I do succeed. I just wanted to add it to my list to be more accountable.

I think my favorite, non creative, “create” project is to try to create a more concrete, yet very abstract, link to my mother. Like the GRC, I’m not quite sure why, but I’m suddenly interested in the idea of using her birth certificate to get dual citizenship. I don’t know what all is involved in it, but I want to look into it.

2013 looks to be a good year - there’s a lot of good things on the horizon and there’s a lot of good things on the to-do list.

2012 can SUCK IT. It’s definitely time to move on, and the timing couldn’t be better.