2011

Last night, after a rather lackluster and fairly contentious New Year's Day, my husband asked me what I wanted to accomplish in 2011. I don't make resolutions, because I am trying to get away from requiring so much of myself all the damn time, and at first, I didn't know how I wanted to answer that question.

But really, I do.

I want to get accepted to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art's Docent Training Program.

I want to attend both of the ArtBliss events in 2011, in March and in September (if there IS a September event...)

I want to take a college-level art history course.

I want to walk every morning. Or at least 5 mornings a week. Let's be reasonable, some days I won't be able to.

I want to stop thinking: I should do this or I should do that, or I have to do this or that, or do this because someone else (or a LOT of someone else's) are doing it. I also plan to stop paying so much attention to people who say those things to me, if what they say doesn't resonate with my heart and soul. There's a difference between taking a suggestion because it feels right to me, and doing something because I feel like I MUST.

I want to dress more adventurously, and care less about what people think of it, especially if it makes me happy to do so.

I want to play with my children more, ride bikes with my oldest daughter, and go out on kid-free dates with my husband (more than twice in a year).

I want to garden a little less lazily.

I want to let go of a good portion of what I do for my business, and only do the things I want to do for it. Luckily for me, I don't need my art business to make household/life money, I have a very part-time job for that.

I want to redefine myself in terms of my art-making -- for this year, it means to focus on what brings me inordinate amounts of joy -- metalworking and all its associated techniques, glassworking, and writing/photography.

I want to have my kiln paid off and in my workshop.

I'm not even going to say anything about the torch and oxy concentrator. I've been talking about them for the last two years, and talking hasn't gotten me any closer to having.

The list seems long, but really, when it all is taken together, it represents a change in the way of living. Or at least, a road map for a different kind of journey. I'm tired of trudging the road I have been on. It sucks the life out of my soul. I am weary of the demands and requirements and expectations I have placed on myself for most of my adult life -- expectations that nobody else has placed on me. So, I am going to try living without most of them.

The end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 represents a period of intense learning for me, about myself, about who I am at this stage in my life, and where I am and want to be headed. So many doors have closed, so many fewer things and experiences are realistically available to me, but the road is still wide and long and filled with adventures and journeys that were not possible before now.

"LET THE UNIVERSE show you the way via your impulses and instincts that appear as you take inspired action."