How Do I Start This Damn Thing????

Welcome to the rantings of a middle-aged Irish female.....

I'd like to think of myself as a fairly knowledgeable - not expert, mind you - web user; but after trying to edit my blogspot profile, I'd better re-think that...geez, I feel like an idiot....

Ten years ago, my New Year's resolution was to be published within 5 years.  Not only did I fail, I didn't really make much of an attempt.  Rejection is not something of which I'm particularly fond.  I know I'm a good writer, it's a matter of wanting validation that other people think I'm a good writer, the way that they swoon when they discuss their favorite authors. I think I probably need to give up on that one, and write for my own satisfaction and clarity, and if it gets read and enjoyed, terrific.  If not, so be it.

Every year seems to bring more evidence that I'm not getting any younger (duh!) and I, as well as the people I love, are yet another heartbeat or two closer to the end. Morbid, I know, but I'm just amazed - my mother was right:  my body is decrepit, but my heart is still 19. The only time I'm brought up short is when I catch an unintended glance in the mirror - Aaacckkk! I look like my mother! And she's been dead for 16 years! So, rather than fight against an enemy which cannot be vanquished, I've decided to roll with it, and do pretty much whatever strikes my fancy.  And this blog is step number one.

Being December 26, we've just finished Christmas 2011. It's important to understand just how much I HATE the end of Christmas. It has the potential to send me into a funk that doesn't end until St. Patrick's Day. Radio stations that have been pounding Christmas music in my ears since the week before Thanksgiving abruptly halt it on the dot of midnight, 12/26. Why can't we celebrate it they way it was intended, for 12 days, until Epiphany? Then we can sort of ease out of it. I've been known to pay my son to dismantle the tree and household decorations so that I won't have to do it, and when I come home from work, all evidence of the holiday will be gone. Talk about a weenie.....

But this year, I've decided to throw back my shoulders and embrace the end of the season as the beginning of new possibilities.  I don't make ridiculous goals and resolutions; if I was ever going to be a size 5 (which is overrated anyway), it would have happened by now.  As Rhoda Morgenstern once said on the Mary Tyler Moore show back in the '70's, "The last time I wore an eight, it was on the back of my basketball jersey." I'm pushing 56 years old, and my definition of success has changed significantly.  If I can keep my resting pulse rate under 65, my blood pressure around 105/70, and my total cholesterol at 165, that will have to be enough.  I can out-walk/run most of my peers, even with controlled rheumatoid arthritis, so I need to stop whining about something that will never happen, and concentrate on the things I CAN do that make me special.

I don't know why, exactly, I think that anyone will care about what I write or even know that it's here. Again, that's not really the end result that I'm chasing. What I'm hoping is that somehow, the train of thought in my brain that's stuck in overdrive will be able to slow down a bit, and achieve enough clarity that I can sleep at night.

So, on the off chance that you a) see this, or b) read it, comment if you like, but please, be gentle.