My Goals for 2012
Yeah, I know I’m about a month late. I’ve had the basic ideas down for a while, but I’ve been finding it simultaneously very difficult to articulate and very difficult not to. Which is to say this is the sort of thing that has nagged me to write it, but not given me much inspiration to write it well. I’m gonna write it anyway, ’cause that’s what I do.
First of all, this is the year I didn’t make any resolutions. Resolutions have turned out to be a strangely competitive sport of seeing how far we can push the art of lying to ourselves and still believe whatever candy-coated unicorn poop we’re shoveling. This time of year (well, a month ago, because obviously giving up procrastinating isn’t on my list) we pat each other, and ourselves, on the back for declaring the most noble and ambitious promises we can imagine. Yet, by the time of year this is actually being posted, many of us will have swept those tarnished fantasies behind a mystery bin in the garage. You know the garage that we were going to finally clean out and organize for our long envisioned home gym and/or workshop, or maybe just a parking space. Yeah. So to sum up, that’s what I’m not doing this year; I’m not excavating the garage, I’m not giving up procrastinating and I’m not making any resolutions. That sentence, right there, makes this one of my most honest Januarys, ever, by the way.
So what, do I think I’m perfect now? Nope. Have I finally given up on self-improvement? Nope again. I’ve just stopped believing that the night I stay up late, eating calorie dense finger foods and drinking champagne, magically gives way to the day that I change my entire life. I’m trading in my holiday declarations of change for the daily grind of goals. Goals are about as dull and colorless as dishwater, but they stick around long after the resolutions are gone.
I’ve condensed my basic long-term goals, the ones I’m working on every day until I get there, into a simple phrase: Debt-free Derby Mama with a Degree. It’s pretty simple, and I don’t have to backtrack through my journal to remember what I wanted. Let me break it down into more complicated and verbose terms though. This is what that means to me-
Debt-free
As far as financial goals go, Debt-free is pretty self explanatory. The only reason anyone lives in my zip code is affordable housing, so I don’t mind my mortgage. It’s just that when I was a teenager, I used to like to swim upstream in the creek. When I’d get too tired to swim, I’d grab onto a big rock and rest a bit, then start swimming against the current as soon as I was able. This one time out by Honey Run Bridge, the very big rock I’d grabbed came loose and we rolled together. When we stopped tumbling I had a very large chunk of stone resting on my chest and a lovely view through a few feet of water. My credit card debt feels a lot like that moment. I tried to lean on the credit cards for support when I needed to pay vet bills, or car repair bills, or when we ate out way too much around the time of my son’s surgery. Now it’s like that relationship has flipped and I’m trying to breathe while pinned under water with a minor boulder on my chest. I’d like to fix that. So I’m making an active effort to spend less, and pay off more, until I am debt-free.
Derby
How does a new skater describe roller derby without sounding like an infatuated teeny bopper? I could tell you that I’ve never felt this way about a sport before, that we were meant for each other, that derby just gets me, but you wouldn’t understand. Unless, of course, you’re in love with derby too. Suffice to say, I love derby.
It is, however, a very demanding love affair. Derby requires commitment, strength, stamina and flexibility. My goal is to meet those requirements. This is not a sport for a middle-aged housewife who has let herself go. Well, I guess it is, since that’s who I was when we found each other. That’s just not who I am anymore. My lungs expanded even faster than my quadriceps, once I learned how to skate more than a few feet without planting my rump on the rink. I am already thrilled with the physical vitality I’ve forged in the heat of this sport and I’ve still got a long road to travel towards being the athlete my league deserves. The Roller Derby Workout Challenge 2012 is certainly going to push me further towards that goal, but this is just part of a long journey.
With my recent physical success I can see so clearly why every weight loss resolution I’ve ever made (and believe me I’ve made plenty) has failed. I kept promising myself a new lean body in the old fat life. I didn’t want to, or believed I couldn’t, change the sleep habits, eating habits, exercise habits, et cetera, that were making me fat. Instead I’d push myself for these intense, punishing, bursts of diet and exercise, often losing twenty to thirty pounds. By Easter I would find myself wallowing in failure and Jelly Bellies. Now I want to skate hard (which for me is still pretty bunny slope by comparison) and often. I want to make choices that make me able to skate harder. If I don’t workout between practices, if I don’t eat right, if I don’t sleep enough, it shows. Maybe not to anyone else, but I can feel the difference. Some nights my legs feel like I’m trying to run through cement and others I feel like I wouldn’t trade my skates for Hermes’ winged sandals airmailed special from Mt. Olympus. The more I live like the athlete I want to be, the more my body forms to that expectation. I will look like the life I lead, and that’s a great bonus now that I’m leading a more athletic life.
Mama
It’s who I am, who I’ve been, who I will be. I think my daughter and her father sometimes worry when I go off on my adventures that I’m rejecting my parental role. I’m just trying not to evaporate into it. I love pouring myself into my children, but I can’t do it if I’m a cracked and/or empty vessel. The other goals are how I refill, so I can have more and better things to give to my children, and phooey on anyone who thinks otherwise.
with a Degree
I also started college today, which means I should be reading a microeconomics textbook right now instead of blithering on in my blog. I’m a high school dropout and I’m prone to using that as an excuse to leave the interesting lives to the smart kids. My AA won’t really make me smarter, but it will make me more employable and it’ll take away one more excuse I have for telling myself “I can’t.”
Words in bold, just so my closing paragraph doesn’t blend into my last goal set
I won’t complete these goals this year, and I’ll surely have bigger goals someday after these finish lines are crossed. These are just the markers I have my eyes on for now, the what, the why, and the how of the better life I’m building. I’ll let ya’ll know how it works out.
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