Twenty-Five Things – 2013

I love making lists. It makes me feel like I’m putting together a plan for world domination so I turn to it gleefully at the end of each year.It includes highlights, great books, things learned, things to be repeated, and objectives for the new year.

Here it is:

1. Having fun with someone you’ve known for a long time in a whole new way. Dave and I laughed our asses off when we got on the plane to Europe. Grief, challenges, the weight of life all thrown back at the universe in gales of laughter.

2. Realizing I don’t know any other way to travel except like the 18 year old I was way back when and that Dave is the same and neither of us knew that about the other.

3. Adventure is the spice of life. I’d forgotten how fun unplanned things are – that making your way, walking your way, getting lost, not showing up on time, showing up wherever you want whenever you want is the greatest most carefree feeling.

3. That daring to speak broken French really is fun so I will go back and do it again – hopefully a little better this time.

4. Watching someone who doesn’t realize his gifts create those gifts is a beautiful thing.

5. I love reading fiction and poetry much more than my books on sustainability. I need fiction and poetry for my soul. Great art gives me great hope that the world isn’t as terrible a place as I often think it is.

6. That reading books and taking courses on sustainability are giving me tools to fight against the mess we have created and at the end of the day that gives me hope.

7. I need hope.

8. I’d rather die trying than not try at all.

9. Once upon a time I thought I would have 8 children. All boys. They would call me mom and I would cook awesome meals and build a family of love and joy. They would adore me. There never was a father in this picture until I met Dave.

10. That didn’t happen.

11. But other great things did so I don’t worry about what I didn’t get.

12. I transferred all my maternal love to my beautiful boy Reuben.

13. When he left I transferred all that love outwards to animals.

14. That I am walking a path towards activism. I would rather die trying than not having tried at all.

15. That I have already learned from a committed group of people about ACTION. The only thing that works is ACTION. You have to do things to change things.

16. I feel overwhelmed by the weight of things to be done.

17. I feel less overwhelmed because I can start measuring success where I see it.

18. I am arming myself with knowledge so I can fight better and this makes me laugh inside. Really laugh.

19. I love seeing my niece Ella become immersed in the world of animals and all she does for them. Seeing that gives me hope. EllaPhant she calls herself. She’s a fundraiser. And she shares her knowledge when she can.

20. I love talking stupid talk on the phone with my brother Johnny. I love my brother Johnny.

21. I like the look of shock on people’s faces when I tell them this is the year I will become a righteous bitch.

22. I finally realize that I really do need down time. That I learned that from Dave but now I need it.

23. I can learn and understand science and this has been a big, big surprise. I won’t be the best but I’m not the worst.

24. My sisters. I love that I can even say that. My sisters.

25. I love spending time with Dave more than anybody else. We are best, best friends and I can’t believe how lucky we are. Even though he’s messy:)

26. My mom took her red necklace back but I got something else instead. And I’m happy she has it back. I want her to look beautiful wherever she is.