MAMACADABRA

Last week as I was nursing a nasty holiday hangover and limping through my short work week I began thinking about 2012.  How could I possibly have a better year than that of 2011?  It’s not that 2011 was anything spectacular, but it followed a particularly horrendous 2009 and 2010, making it one of the most valuable and needed years I’ve had in my 35 (almost 36) years.  So I started thinking…’what if?’  What if I took small steps, teensy steps, every day of 2012 to make myself, my marriage, and my life, better?  Little things like…what if I did 25 push-ups a day?  Would 365 days of 25 push-ups give me better arms?  I don’t know the answer to that but I can’t imagine it would make my arms worse.  What if I woke up every morning and thought to myself ‘I LOVE my job and I’m SO good at it!’  Would I like my job more and more?  Would I do better work?  Raise more money?  Again, I don’t know, but I refuse to believe it could make me dislike my job or be less good at it.  To up the ante, I wondered ‘what if I wrote about it?’  What if I shared my idea with others?  Hmmm…I was intrigued.

I dubbed 2012 as The Year of What If.  I started talking about it with my friends.  My girlfriends thought it sounded logical.  Sensical. Intriguing.  Now, I need to  be clear.  I’m quick to come up with inspiring plans.  I’m quick to come up with any plan, actually, inspiring or not.  I’m a plan girl.  I’m also quick to let said plans fall by the wayside.  I’ve had LOTS of plans through the years that, in retrospect were GREAT plans, but for the past several years I’ve just  been trying to hold things together for this family and there hasn’t been much room to do anything extra.  Energy to take additional things on is sometimes hard to come by.

2011 allowed the dust to settle, the guard to come down, and relaxation to set-in.  It took a full 365 days for that to happen.  Now that it has, however, it’s time for a plan.  A good one.  It’s time for The Year of What If!

New Year’s Eve we were out with friends and after a few drinks my husband shares with some of the guys my idea about The Year of What If.  The synical bastards contended that even if they woke up and said they loved their jobs they’d still get to work and have to deal with the same a-sholes and the same BS they do every day.  That it wouldn’t change anything.  I beg to differ.  Right then and there I vowed to try it.  And to talk about it here.

Fast forward to Sunday, January 1st which should have been day one.  Well…it didn’t exactly happen.  I did go to the gym, and I did work my butt off, and I spent a nice day with my husband, and I set-up this blog, but I didn’t write anything.  I did however plan to do it on Monday.  Monday we got our girls back from the other parents and it was pure unbridled chaos.  All.  Day.  Which brings us to Tuesday, January 3rd (!!!), when I woke up with my alarm from a dream that my husband had died unexpectedly, from a very unlikely cause, and with my head pounding from having been crying in my sleep.  The headache followed me through my entire first day back at work (not how I had hoped to start my work week) and home again.  I went to bed early.

Which brings me to today.  Wednesday, January 4th (!!!!!!!).  Four days into 2012 and I haven’t done anything.  What if my little plan didn’t go off as planned?!  This, my friends, is where my fabulous plans turn to formerly fabulous plans.

But not this year.  Not in 2012.  The truth is I’ve been through too much to let a few bad days dissuade me.  So I’m jumping back on my own bandwagon and I’m saying WHAT IF for the next 361 (four days doesn’t a fabulous plan break!) days I do little things each day to make this a truly spectacular year?  I think it’s a plan.

Today: What if I wrote a blog about The Year of What If?  For the record, this totally freaks me out.  But what the hell…nothing ventured…