A slightly late New Year's Resolution

I went to a funeral today. I didn’t know the man who had died; I knew his daughter as somebody I once worked with and who I have kept in touch with since she left my place of employment. I went to this funeral more for her than anything else. However, as is often the case, it seems that there were other reasons I was there. What was said and what I saw forced me to look at my life and to measure it, using as a yardstick the life of this man who I did not know. I am not happy with what I am seeing in myself, and I hope that this feeling will stay with me and not allow me to slip back into passivity.

Passivity. That very well could be the word that best defines my life. For at least the last 40 years my life has been one of spurts of energy/activity followed by long periods of passive inertia. I would do something, make a change, set, pursue and reach a goal, and then I would coast on the momentum for five…ten…ten plus years. And during those periods of passivity, where I did not initiate anything or try to change the status quo in any way, I would fantasize about what I was going to do. So, here I am, looking my “golden years” dead square in the eyes, and I find my life lacking.

OK, I’ve done some things of value over the past 40 years, and I still have time (I hope) to do a little more with this life I’ve been given. To that end, I came home from the funeral and checked to see if any of my favorite blogs had anything new, and I found Sarah’s occasional Blog had a new entry. It, too, spoke to me. It reminded me of a letter I received about 30 years ago which, for a long time, I had framed over my desk. [Aside: I just went to look for it, and, probably not surprisingly, I have no idea where it is now.] The letter was one of encouragement from the editor of the Maine Times (may it rest in peace) regarding my writing. You see, writing is something I have always done fairly well. I just have never had the internal discipline required to make it the focus of my life.

I don’t kid myself: At this point in my life, writing will not be something that supports me in an economic way. However, it could become the thing that gives my life purpose and direction. To that end, though, I have to be, as Sarah says, intentional about my prose. I have to treat wordsmithing  with the respect and attention it deserves. I have to open the old word processor and write for, well…, at least thirty minutes per day. Ideally, this writing should be done when I am fresh and rested, but, even if I wait until the tag end of the day, I still need to write for at least that amount of time. So, this becomes a slightly late New Year’s Resolution for me: Write something every day. I may not publish what I write every day (it is more than likely that it will take me a couple days to get something “perfect”), but I will spend that much time putting words on a screen (or on paper, for that matter…thirty minutes of writing is thirty minutes of writing).

There is more to come on this topic. But, I want to get this posted before it gets buried in the “to be completed” file…