New Year 2012

Happy New Year !!!! Even though I am not inclined to believe that the absence of years beyond 2012 in the Mayan calendar really means anything, I'm using it as a good excuse to try to make it a really great year. I mean, none of us really know when it's going to be our own personal "final year," right ? And even if it's not, why wait to live big ? I'm not talking about skydiving or climbing Everest (although if that's on your bucket list, this year is as good as any to go for it.) I just mean that it's time to stop waiting for meaningful things in life to happen (which really hasn't been working out all that well in my case) and, instead, grabbing your life by the horns and making the things happen that will improve it.

It's up to each of us to figure out what those things will be. Some will be big, some will be small, some will work out and some won't. But whatever those things are, the time is right to start working toward them. They say that, at life's end, most people regret what they didn't do more than what they did. Certainly there are a few exceptions....Bernie Madoff comes to mind. But for most of us, if asked "what have been your happiest moments in life," a laundry list of past events will come to mind. Few will say "the time I laid on the couch and watched a 24 hour Seinfeld marathon from end to end," although downtime is certainly a thing to be cultivated and enjoyed. Most of these treasured memories will be special moments spent with family or friends, such as a wedding, a baseball game with a beloved nephew or a "for the hell of it" trip with friends to The Big Apple . Others will be times that we did something that we might have never pictured ourselves doing, like running a 10K or going on a white water rafting trip.

So this year, I am resolving not to let opportunities for meaningful life experiences pass me by. In fact, I will seek them out and, in some cases, create the experiences for myself and others. Don't get me wrong. There will still be plenty of my legendary yard naps. I'm definitely a "stop and smell the roses" kind of gal. But I'm also tired of feeling like I'm waiting for my life to start, to quote a line from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I'll be fifty next year, which they say is the new thirty. Thirty is the age when Loving Care hair products used to tell women "you're not getting older...you're getting better." (Can you believe it ? Thirty ???) In spite of the frighteningly young age at which they felt that women needed to be reassured about their worth, I do agree with the general sentiment. It truly seems that youth is wasted on the young, and its about time this almost-ready-for-AARP chickie started living the way she should have been living all along. And, my friends, I suggest you do the same....no matter what your age.