Today's Reverb 10 prompt:
December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)
This year I have been like someone panning for gold: sifting. I feel like I have spent the year sifting through all the dirt of my life, looking for the bits of gold, the pieces and habits and stuff worth keeping. In 2009, I was very serious about weight loss – I made it my life, my project for the whole year. It was my only real hobby and my one big passion. But in 2010, I sifted through the process, and found the habits and behaviours worth keeping, and the ones I could see sustaining for the rest of my life. I may have gained 15 lbs in the process, but I have found the bits of gold: yoga and cooking and beer and walking – and I have gotten rid of the dirt: running and deprivation and peer pressure.
I have figured out what I like about my work, and what I don’t. I have figured out who I like to spend my time with, and who I don’t. I have figured out what I really want to read, what I want to do with my time, what’s important to me. And of course, Shaun and I moved into the townhouse, so when we moved we did some actual sifting: papers, clothes, books, junk, more junk, and still more junk.
This year has been good – difficult but good, and I would say the same about the previous year too. But next year I would like simple, I would like fun. After years of hard work, I would like to just have fun. I want to go to yoga because it’s fun. I want to have people over to our place because it’s fun. I want to cook because it’s fun. I want to go curling with our friends and drink beer because it’s fun. I want to go on another sun trip because it’s fun. I want to take pictures and play around in Photoshop because it’s fun.
I don't think fun means being reckless or irresponsible, it just means finding more joy in the things I do every day. Enough worrying – enough analyzing. Next year I’m going to have fun.
(I snapped this picture in Vegas last year -- that was definitely a fun trip, and I always thought there was something so free about all these suspended umbrellas.)
What would be your word to describe 2010? What do you want 2011 to look like?
