Another September, Another Chance

I love September, especially when we're in it.
Willie Stargell 

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer's wreckage. We will welcome summer's ghost.
Henry Rollins 


I also love September, and yet I find myself often depressed by it. As one who has lived 45 years on an American school schedule, I feel September as my true New Year. This is when I evaluate how the last year went and promise myself that I will change the things I didn't like and hold on to the things I loved.

After 45 year it becomes easy to see that doing that isn't easy. The resolutions each year sound a lot like the resolutions of the years before them.  So hope and depression mingle, like the perfection that is my home area in September, when the fruits are ripe and scenting the air and free for the taking. When windows hang open and the temperature both mid-day and mid-night is comfortable without air conditioning or heaters. Life is perfect but also tainted by the knowledge of how quickly things must change, and when they seem perfect, even a small change feels like a loss.

Yet This picture of my Son reminds me that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  As a toddler he wanted nothing more than to be on a boat with a line in the water. So when grandpa took him and his brother out, he was in his element, and now, when he thinks I'd  rather have him in college like his brother, 

he is a commercial fisherman with a lot of hard dangerous work and he is not always happy, not always content, but he is where he was born to be and he is true and loyal to who he is in a way that makes me proud of him.

 Wouldn't it be boring if everyone made the same choices?  If the world had one color, or one species or one religion or one dream?

I find my dreams and hopes in my family and my students and in the books I write and the books I read. I don't think my way is better than yours though, if you never want to have a child, or write a book, if exercise delights you, and you like to get physically tested, I love to hear your stories and watch you work out.

At 50 I have lost enough loved ones to know that the sadness I feel in September is the knowledge of things slipping through my fingers and away, no matter how tightly I grip.  I know my enjoyment of the vivid sunflower will be bittersweet for the knowledge of the grey rainy winter on the way. I know I play with the young dog, and already see him old and limping and grey muzzled now that I have had a series of wonderful dogs live out their life as my friend.

 But I can anticipate more than pain and loss. I also have lived long enough to know the death in the family, is followed by another birth, that the withered sunflower stalks drop the sees that volunteer next springs green shoots, and next Septembers glory.

So I have been thinking about what I have and what I have not done. I was going to make the bucket list of the things I wanted to visit, and do, and own, but while it is true, I want to see and do more, I'm not too concerned with owning THINGS anymore So this is what I really want for my resolutions

 I want to get rid of the clutter the way my neighbor has spent the summer removing the old junker trailer.

 I want to enjoy the gifts of life, like free blackberries

 and beautiful friends
 and bright
vivid
blooms

Facing a New Year - Again

New Year's Resolutions are something I have always tried to have, twice a year even, because come the September beginning of school, I always figure here is a clean slate, well . . . smart board

So then I decide that everything will be done right, this time around and the clutter of my hoarding ways, and the couch tater lifestyle I love and the pounds I've added with the baked goods I am unfortunately great at making will all change overnight.  I'll be active, healthy and a perfect wife, Mom and teacher, as soon as I open my eyes on January First, or the day after Labor Day.

 but they say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  So I finally broke the insanity cycle and it didn't happen over-night  (Surprise?)

 It began with a simple glance in a Woman's Circle magazine that my Mom had in her house back from October 8, 2002.  It claimed that you spend your time and energy being drained and stressed by the things in your life that you think are minor and you just tolerate them without realizing it.  The most common tolerations were summed up in the magazine as being

1. Paper Clutter

2. Clothing fit

3. running out before a shopping trip

4. uncomfortable bed

5.  overweight

6. computer glitches

7. messy car

8. interruptions at work

9. no time for breakfast

10. traffic

and the suggestion was to find, not ten or twenty of the little irritations, but 100! 

 and then eliminating them

So in December of 2003, I made the list and  included things like a broken hot tub and a saggy van door and piles of clutter and being stiff necked in the morning and on and on

then in 2004  I  tried the resolution approach again

Write a book, weight down, house de-cluttered, out of debt, drawing again, control temper better

but honestly, that didn't work and by Thanksgiving 2005 I was feeling like a failure and my husband and I were feeling overwhelmed and stressed, when i opened my journal to that 100 list and realized I could check a bunch of them off but we'd been too close to see the progress

then I made a new list

and started it with the leftovers from the old one, but I had to put my starting weight at even higher.

and the piles of clutter were reduced but not gone

By 2007 I could only find 49 things  and by Thanksgiving 2007 I came up wit a new list - the best list this time

100 things to be Thankful For
and the thing is

It was an easy list to make

I had to stretch for several things that i take for granted now

like the fact that the dirty dishes and dirty clothing are a sign that I have been blessed with food and clothing

And then I was blessed with two online angels who helped me see that my clutter and my unhealthy habits were simply the result of baby steps in the wrong direction and that I could repair the damage by taking baby steps back toward my goals

Flylady.com assured me that I could do anything for 15 minutes, even paint a house 15 minutes at a time

and that the clutter came in one bag at a time and could leave the same way.  So I eliminated 7 pick up truck loads of clutter, to a yard sale, a church donation center and the transfer station.

Jonathan Roche at NoExcuses Workouts helped me get healthy by choosing water over soda, a walk over driving in circles looking for the closest parking lot.  Little changes that made me drop from 286 to 253 so far and yet feel like I am pampered instead of deprived.

This year I have Published my book, Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog.
Taken long walks and gone camping with my family,
and celebrated a wonderful Holiday season

And this year for my 100 list I am stealing an idea that @MenWithPens tweeted on Twitter.  From the 168 hour project Idea, of making a list of 100 things that I still want to accomplish in my life, and he says that when you list 100 you'll break them into small 10 minute pieces, so that you'll get in the habit of meeting your dreams and goals 10 minutes at a time.  Hmmm.  That sounds like Flylady to me all over again