Three Words

Bravery. Forgiveness. Endurance.

Life has a way of falling into place for me as of late. I wanted to write something thought provoking tonight, but lacked a topic...that is until I read my friend Graydancer's blog. His latest got me thinking (again), and thus my entry started germinating.

His latest blog, Word Up, talks about an idea from Chris Brogen, using three words to "describe the themes you want to focus on for the upcoming year." These are not goals, but instead are touchstones for your year, ideas to go back to and strive to weave into your everyday life.

I knew mine before I even finished reading.


Bravery

I think some people who know me would say I posses this quality. I try to live a very open life. I want to be truly me, always. But, right now, I must admit next year scares me.

I have a lot on my plate. I have opportunities in both my work, kink, and writing lives that get me all twitchy. I fear I will not be able to live up to who I want to be, what I want to do, how far I want to push myself in the next twelve months.

So, I shall hold tight to the idea of being brave.

I will take on new work responsibilities, viewing my new found leadership potential as a challenge (not a threat).

I will go to my events possibly knowing people. However, either way, I will hold up my head, introduce myself to many many people, and see where life takes me from there.

I will write, not thinking about how others will view my work, love or criticize, hail or trash. I will write for me, for the love of my stories, my characters. I will pour my heart out onto the page and see where life decides to let the words flow.

I will be brave, even when I'm scared. Even when all I want to do is curl up in a ball under the covers and snuggle with Tessie. I will not let myself be less than all I could possibly be, with or without the jitters.


Forgiveness

I want to work on giving myself a fucking break. Often times I beat up myself for little missteps, mistakes, bumbles, opps, etc.

I am a much harsher judge of myself than I will ever be of anyone else. I seek a level of ability, or near perfection, I would never expect in others. I chastise myself for small mistakes when the same deeds in others I merely brush off.

This year, I will endeavor to not lecture myself on the simple faux pas. I will work to accept that whatever happened happened, that I do not need (nor should I ever expect) to be perfect, that people will still love and care about me if I do something stupid, or forget something minor, or just plain fuck up. I must learn to let things go, to release my anxiety, to let it roll off my back.

My friendships, and my life, are not balanced on the head of a pen. I need to stop believing that they are.


Endurance

I have set myself up with multiple highly ambitious goals:

- attending ten (or more) events

- taking every Sunday off for my writing

- finishing at least one (if not two) novels

With that as just my baseline, I have more on my plate than most would ever dare eat. But, I have an ace in the hole: endurance.

Often people ask me how I survive at events. For those who don't know, I usually go to bed around 6am and am up around 9am. My standard answer is adrenaline and shear force of will.

To an extent, this is true. My job has assisted in teaching me how to function on low amounts of sleep. However, when I am at an event, for the most part, it is those two ingredients that get me through.

However, for the year, this will not work. Instead, I know I have to pace myself. I know I need to budget time for work, play, AND rest. I have to learn to endure not just a night or a weekend, but for weeks, months, my entire year.

I have faith in myself to be able to achieve all my goals. I will have excellent amazing sexy fun times at events. I will write and write and write. And I will finish, dammit; I will finish.

So, those are my three words. I encourage you to ponder the idea, and then head to Gray's blog and let him know what yours are.