It Doesn't Have to be January

For me to make "New Year's" resolutions.

One great thing about 12-step programs is that they tell you that you can "start your day" (or your year, or your life) over whenever you want to.

I recently did some cyber housecleaning and some soul-searching and have come up with a few resolutions.

To try to love my small-scale life. As I am 61, I doubt that it will ever be anything else, but small doesn't mean "less than". Nor does having a small-scale life mean that I am a small-scale person or that I have a small scale voice or style of singing or that I don't sometimes need to wallow in over-the-top bad taste in clothes or anything else. In this post the esteemed Cindy Sadler talks about all the unrealistic expectations that people are given through magazines, the media, and corporate culture. This can easily spill over into other areas, such as feeling that my life is worth nothing because I don't travel regularly, or have the type of livelihood that entails doing something and being somewhere different every day.

Recognize the signs of boredom and deal with them constructively. Even though I am much happier and less stressed than I was working in an office, and know that I am blessed to have not only health insurance from a former employer, but also work that is endlessly available that provides a means of earning a living that I can do on my own schedule, sometimes it's wearing to do the same thing over and over, in the same place, for hours on end, particularly for someone like me, who, although not a raging extrovert, enjoys being "out there". So when I need a microbreak, my resolve is to look at theater web sites for places to send my first play, or put the finishing touches on my second play. Or see if I can figure out how to take a picture of myself with my cell phone. It can't be that hard.

Avail myself of every opportunity to go out, preferably wearing something nice, that doesn't cost anything. I don't have to have the sort of "career" that involves endless changes of scene to "diversify" my day a little.

I haven't mentioned anything about singing so far, because I am already doing most of the right things there. I usually have a church solo to look forward to, but I should Always make sure I have something else to look forward to, as well. I have a lot of enterprise. I can at least have a plan for a plan for a concert, concert opera, or something similar. And once that gels (even if it's just an idea not a plan) keep the focus on myself. All that matters is how well I'm singing what I'm singing, not where I "fit" in the universe of singing in Manhattan, the United States, or the world, because I probably don't "fit" anywhere. I don't have to "fit" somewhere to sing well or to sing in front of an audience of my own friends and family, or to make a CD and sell it or give it to people.

All of this is very hard.

One of the publications I work on is about people with terminal cancer. Many of them are encouraged to do "life reviews". I find reading about this very moving. Someone told me yesterday that what I refer to as "wistfulness" is living in the past, but apparently thinking about the past is not uncommon for older people (I didn't think I was that old but maybe I am). It is hard to let go of certain things and say that those things will never be (but I can still have other things which may be just as important). It is probably harder to say that certain things will never be than it is to sing a high B flat in public or buckle down and spend five hours editing manuscripts on my laptop when I'd rather be doing something else.