Right Now!

The end of the cruise, beginning of the year

Today is the 20th anniversary of the day I started Glass Incarnate (this blog's original name). While it doesn't feel like yesterday, it also doesn't feel like a third of my life, and half of my adult life ago either. In honor of the day, I begin this post as I used to begin 20 years ago:

Coffee is an iced latte in the reusable plastic cup with a paper straw that I got on deck seven (last day of a 20-day Caribbean cruise), Foreplay/Longtime by Boston blasting through the earbuds. I am bursting with such a feeling of beginning this morning! We have a long day of travel ahead of us tomorrow--Uber from pier to airport in Miami, three flights Miami to Missoula, and then over an hour in the car driving home--but I am ready to face it with aplomb, equanimity, and even eagerness because home is at the end of it. It'll also be another full day of editing my book--at this point just call me Sisyphus, but I am undaunted!

So, beginning. Unfettered by any calendar, today is the first day of the year for me. First day of the Year of the Horse too. It is the first of everything! Oh how I wish this feeling could last. I will try my damndest to not let life become a slog again. In fact, here is my mantra for upcoming year.

Today I will 

• Embrace this new day
• Give thanks for my incredible life and all the special people in it
• Keep seeing the world as wonderful and it's possibilities as fresh and new
• Try to see the good in people whose behavior and actions appall me
• Enjoy everything I do
• Not stress about what I am not doing
• Relax and breathe
• Appreciate life

If I can live that mantra, everything else will just fall into place. I don't need to make resolutions about health, diet, and exercise. I don't need to make a micro-managed schedule of my upcoming time and plans so I can get everything done. Fittingly (and as so often happened in the past while I was writing) Right Now, by Van Halen just started playing through my earbuds. Yes, 

Right now, hey
It's your tomorrow
Right now
Come on, it's everything
Right now
Catch that magic moment
And do it right here and now
It means everything