hello 2020 | personal goals

1. While I'm feeling pretty good in general about my health, I can always do to drink more water and get more exercise.  I'm loathe to talk about diets and diet culture, but eating better in general is always good with some decidedly not-healthy-at-all thrown in in moderation, ie. more fruits and veggies, less donuts (but sometimes donuts.).  Curbing that decades old desire to binge whatever is on the plate. But nothing is more boring that talking about what people eat or don't eat.   I do like to resolve to get more exersize, only because I feel stronger an better physically and mentally when I'm moving on the regular.

2. There is always a struggle to balance the need to recharge my introvert nature and the feeling that I don't get out enough and turn down invitations way too much.  I like being at home, but sometimes even that seems pathological and unhealthy.  I cherish my weekends at home, but that doesn't mean I need to be crazy about maintaining them and miss out on other things.  I feel a little bit of easing on this with having given up the studio.  Since I'm not split in so many directions and less stressed in general, I do get to spend more time at home during the week so maybe this will help me feel better about being a little more socially amenable.

3. And the biggest goal for 2020, perhaps even bigger than creative or professional goals and something I need badly, is to resolve to give much less mental real estate to assholes . I had a work situation in December where I found myself trying to bed over backwards to prove that someone was in the wrong and trying to flip it back on me. There could have been passive aggressive e-mails arguing this in a fear that it absolutely needed to be established they were in the wrong (even though I doubt anyone else cares), but I decided not to.  Years ago, I would have worried that the narrative would have then been that I dropped the ball (which I do, totally sometimes, but not here, and this person has a record of broadcasting other people's failings to hide her own deficiencies).  Normally this would have had me stressed about about it for at least a day. And you know what?  I chose just not to care.   I felt pretty good about it.  Let's hope for more of that in 2020...

4.  I read quite a bit of poetry..either collections or dgp manuscripts, and spend a good part of my live elbow deep in text, but what I never feel I do enough of anymore is reading fiction.  While poetry always feels a little like work, or more active reading in my field, fiction is like a passive pleasure for me.  I used to read a good amount of novels on the bus, but the last couple of years, I spend more time either zoning out or obsessing over randomness.  That time could be better spent with a book, which also makes me less obsessive in general.   I enjoy leisure reading so much and it's stupid not to take advantage of this time.

5. And my perennial goal to document more, whether that be through blogging or photos, social media, scrapbooks (which I used to do obsessively but now pretty much never).  This space helps, as does instagram, which encourages me to take more photos.   Also, things that just help me feel more present and grounded in day to life life.