Love - The Only Why

It's Friday night. I have the weekend left before I head back home to NYC after a week vacation in Texas. I'm having an internal struggle about going back to work. Not that I want to stay in Texas. Too much of a car culture. My preference is easy mass transit (even with all my complaints).

I am feeling a bit contemplative about what I want to work on in the new year. This is what my list looks like at the moment:
1. Write (every day, all the time, any chance i get)
2. Breathe Deeply
3. Smile from my heart
4. Laugh often
5. Be present
6. Minimize material goods
7. Stretch

That's as far as I've gotten but it's a good start. In the past, I make these huge lists of all the things I want to accomplish and all the projects that I want to complete and it adds a certain level of stress to my life. To the point where I start to feel the clock tick-ticking away in the back of my brain when I haven't achieved a number of things on my ghastly lists. I am giving myself a break. An actual PASS from my perpetual TO-DO lists for the next twelve months.

Instead, I want to try some new things, explore interests that will wake me up. I've been too dormant. Too passive. Expending too much time and energy into things that are NOT important to me. And not spending enough time with my nieces and the rest of my family. I've been neglectful because I've been too busy earning a living. At the end of the day, that doesn't really cut it for me. I want to connect with friends and family in a different way.

I was trying to paraphrase a line from the movie Collateral Beauty and no matter how I wrote it out, there was a whole emotional context that was missing.  I'm opting now instead to write out loud that I need a new reason to get out of bed in the morning when I have to face my day. I don't want it to be about paying bills, I want my life to be out so much more.  Connect to those things that will bring music back into my soul, literally and figuratively. For starters, explore Latin Jazz ...I was listening to some old Cuban music and an ember of interest burned hot in my belly.  I'm going to follow through when I get home. Find some venues to listen to some live music and see where it takes me.  You get my drift.  Of course, there is so much more to write but for now I'll leave it there.

This is my last entry for 2016.

Peace,
Lily

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