Listless

The last time I wrote here, on this blog was almost three weeks ago, when I pledged to begin an every-single-day regiment of posting here for at least a month. No one reads this, I know. But the point was to prove to myself that I could and to begin to change some of the terrible, horrible lack-of-stick-to-itiveness habits that I have lived with since I was a child.

When I made the decision to move with my boyfriend and our friends to Boston I had planned to make some Real Changes in my life. I figured that with leaving NYC the temptation to go out, to spend money and to party would die down and that I would make this natural shift over to being a productive, healthy-living, high-earning adult. I planned to read books all the time, work hard at writing and yoga and cooking and take many steps towards becoming a better housekeeper; skills that are critical for me to learn.

While the geographic change and my impressive lack of money have made some of these goals rather easy, I was genuinely surprised that my personality, habits and discipline-or lack thereof-didn't change with the immediacy of an on/off switch. Sure, I wanted to post everyday, but somehow it just wasn't happening.

It wasn't all due to laziness, shiftlessness and sloth; learning to live with four people when one has previously only been used to living with one is a significant challenge. Add to that the fact that we are trying to make a very old, very poorly maintained and very rarely cleaned house livable AND find a legitimate source of income, and you have a high-stress situation that doesn't leave a whole lot of time where one feels comfortable just sitting and writing. But that, to me, is precisely WHY it's critical that I post everyday. I cannot let external situations dictate everything, and I must learn to produce and continue to create and move forward even under less-than optimal conditions. This is something I must do.

Lots of times I wake up in the morning and I make a "To Do List". For some reason this makes me feel particularly productive, almost as though I have actually DONE all of those things, instead of just having listed them. the reality is, I rarely if ever complete a list and oftentimes things on the To Do List stay on the list for weeks, undone. I decided yesterday that it's stupid. It makes me feel like I failed and I haven't and it is a reductive way for me to plan my days. It may work for some people and I think it's useful for remembering tasks or items, but to use it as a "this is how your day will go" schedule, well, it just doesn't work for me.

Instead I made a list of Things I'd Like to Do. It's an overall, comprehensive list of what I'd like life to look like. I feel like writing those things down was critical; it let me list my real, actual goals, rather than a series of chores. It also helped me see the day to day bullshit as part and parcel with these larger goals. Not a bad way to gain perspective. Here are some of them...

Things I Want To Do

• Develop a serious and regular yoga practice
  
• Have a Spotless Kitchen, Bathroom and Bedroom
• Lose 15 lbs (it's vain but I'm being honest here)
• Only have 2 beers/glasses of wine MAX on a weeknight
• Get up no later than 9:30 every weekday
• Be in bed no later than 12:30 am every weeknight
• Complete a craft project once a month
• Keep in good e-mail touch with certain of my friends
• Cook for myself, lunch AND dinner 4 times a week
• Read all of Jane Austen before 2010
• Get something published for reals before I turn 30
• Take photos and post them on this website
• Buy a beautiful coat for winter and some sick sick sick ankle boots.
  

So there we are. I'm going to take it one day at a time and see what happens with this, with all of this.