Work Like a Dog

Well, we're three weeks into the new year. I haven't come to any conclusions about where I am at or where I'm going, so there's that. If anything, I've become somewhat more confused about the whole thing, but I will do my best to work through it in the coming months, one way or another.

I finished Wanderlust. Not the same book the new movie is about, but one I read about in Elle and tried  for a long time to find used even though it's quite new and finally gave up and purchased from Amazon. I loved it for the first 15/16ths of the book (yes, I'm that specific), but by the time the tying-up rolled around, I was more sick of her antics than I imagine the people in her life were. While in the beginning I loved her free spirit, she finally struck me as a user, immature and self-serving. I didn't admire the way she handled herself, and I hope next time I can find another travel writer that at least professes to bring more to the lives of others than a girl to pine after once she inevitably leaves them. I can only hope that we're witnessing a growing-up type of transformation from the person she is in most of the book to the person I hope she realizes she wants to be - otherwise, the whole thing seems pointless to me.

Speaking of writing (and growing up), I began my "memoir". Okay, I'll quit it with the downsizing of myself and ambitions and remove the quotes. Memoir. I told my husband that I'm afraid this will end up being more of an essay than a book. I'm so used to trying to control my long-windedness that I end up wrapping up every story quickly, feeling that I am losing grasp of the imagined reader's interest and trying their waning patience with my droning on and on. My plan is to get the main ideas down, whether in ten pages or fifty, go back and organize, then try to flesh out the malnourished parts.

Resolution

Last year, after reading The Happiness Project (and blogging about my year at 2011yearonoregrets.blogspot.com), I made a broad list of the types of things I'd like to work on in my life (discipline, money, healthy living, creativity, etc.) and came up with some specific resolutions. This year, I am feeling less directional. I am creeping up on the end of my (current) college career at the end of this year. Twelve months is a little while, but it's not a long while. Then what?