It's a Rambling Old House with a Big Apple Tree

This is my favorite selfie of 2017. I woke up in Maine, a sunny cool morning, felt the old curl of my hair and crusty eye lids from previous night's show. I snapped this. I went on a run. I likely bought a donut.

In 2018 I want to begin each day phoneless (quiet bathroom, journaling session, readings.)
I will try to spend a little more time with family and finish my book.
I'd like to eat less dairy and keep a more cohesive to-do list.
There is a plan for bi-weekly meetings on a large project with so and so. I am sure enough to ask for eyes on my things and to charge for my eyes on other things.
I have the most incredible life, and I spend it rushed. I'd like to not...somehow.

The year is laid out before me. I am booked and planned from January - December. I see it all--perhaps for the first time since I was 16 or so. That said, I welcome a curveball. In my ideal life, curveballs. And suddenly what I see so clearly now will be washed away and I will be somewhere completely new on soft baby feet. It's not impossible. It's very possible. So possible I can actually envision at least three alternate realities. I have been close.

There is allegedly something to be said for announcing this type of thing. "This year I WILL xxx." I have done it before. I WILL run a marathon and I WILL finish my screenplay and I WILL go swimming in Wisconsin." I was successful in these endeavors. But now I'm at a point in my life where I can't will the things I hope for ("hope for" even? I'm unsure).

And I wonder how to be the kind of confident that gets one unquestionably hired while also being kind enough to myself to know I will not be a failure if I don't. I believe the answer is in fulfilling motives, not goals. I do think motive-based living can accidentally set my sights too low, but who says a low sight is a bad sight if I really go all in? Again, for the millionth time this year, I feel like I'm learning I was not born to do anything but be alive--if that.

Respond

A few years ago a boss-type figure gave me a directive that sincerely improved my life. I was on the teaching staff for an improv theatre. We had a teacher's meeting one night and he started by explaining he was very annoyed no one had responded to his email. He had emailed us a week earlier asking about the date of next month's meeting. I didn't know when would work next month. I didn't respond. When I explained myself he said, "Okay, why didn't you just say that?" UH DUR. I mean, this was an alcoholic who was usually living in motels and he had to teach me that an unsure response is better than no response.

Sending email can be scary. It's so non-committal. You blast this information into the void and it feels sort of inhuman to be ignored. Did it ever reach the other side of the web? Does the silence mean anger, confusion, complete disregard? It makes me want to apologize for trying to correspond with a person I know. So backwards. "I'm sorry for communicating." I can't think of a sadder and incorrect yet common feeling.