Yesterday I started a 21 day project I’m calling Vibrancy.

Because… I have three weeks of time staring me in the face.

They’re supposed to look like little coins.

My husband and I start thinking about our New Year’s Resolutions a few days early.  We spend January 1 making lists and eating black-eyed peas, collard greens, and johnny cakes–here are some recipes–for good health and fortune plus chocolate and champagne because that’s our tradition.  (This year, we will be skyping.)

All for me this year!

So, I went to sleep Thursday night sorting my most important resolutions.  You know, resume triathlon training and fit into everything in my closet, get rid of clutter, take those dance lessons my husband promised last year, answer all correspondence and clean out my 36,000+ e-mail backlog, set up an Etsy account for my jewelry, pick out a dress for the Oscars when I win Best Original Screenplay…

As a veteran of many years of making resolutions, focusing on only three is most productive.  This year, these three weeks, I want to concentrate on only one.  Selling a screenplay.

Of course, first I have to finish the one I’ve been writing, and writing, and writing.  In truth, it was finished, but I had a “breakthrough”, and everything was up-ended.

Then my most treasured cat in all the world, at age 15, died suddenly.

Blue Blue was my baby.

Then it was Christmas season, and I had to concentrate on selling my jewelry so I could at least justify all the supplies and tools in my studio.

Then… there were a lot of things.  I certainly thought about the characters in my screenplay a lot.  They feel alive to me, but they’re actually languishing deep in my laptop.

When I woke up yesterday (still recovering from the self-inflicted food coma and subsequent hangover from Christmas binge eating), I didn’t have to do anything, be anywhere, or answer to anyone except ZuZu, the dog, and Emmy, our remaining cat.

The fireplace is a great pacifier.

She lets me know when she needs something.

I started feeling guilty about all the things I should do, the catch-up Christmas cards I didn’t write, the thank you cards that would overlap with those Christmas cards, the jewelry that needed finished, the holiday decorations to put away, so I pulled the covers back over my head.

Finally, from out of nowhere, a word seared itself into my brain:  VIBRANT!  The exact opposite of how I felt.  I bolted out of bed, determined to make changes.

This year is going to be different, I told myself.  I jumped in the shower, ready to change my world.

Yesterday (Day 1) ~ Utter Failure/The Deep Abyss

After I jumped out, I spent my time eating, sleeping, thinking of what I should be doing, slipping into very bad Sudoku ways, and surfing—the Internet.  Then, because… the day was already shot, I bought some chocolate ice cream and devoured it.  Then I felt guilty because of that and watched two Keira Knightly movies.  I can watch Pride and Prejudice over and over, just to catch Matthew Macfadyen stutter “I love—I love—I love you” at the end.  The other one was The Dutchess, which I really don’t like, so I kept flipping over to Arnold in Terminator 2.

Oh, Mr. Darcy.

And, I kept mentally flogging myself for screwing up Day 1.  When I’m bad, I’m very, very bad.

Today (Day 2) ~ There’s hope, isn’t there?

Kick-in-the-pants time.  No more grayish living; I want to live in Technicolor.

No more lackluster-ness.  No more whispering, tiptoeing, pussy-footing around all the things I say I want to do.

So, what am I made of?  Will I finish my writing, or twiddle away my time, tormented by the indecision of my mind?  (No need to self-analyze; you get the picture!)

Why is it when I know I should write, I make up every reason to do everything else that’s been on my to-do list for all these years, and when I’m doing those things I’m plagued by guilt over not writing.  When there’s nothing else left to do, I know I must write.  So, finally, today, this is my new start.

Albert E.’s words keep ringing in my ears:  Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I won’t give a day-to-day account of these three weeks, but I will keep track of my progress, and plan to share my success story at the end.  (Isn’t 21 days the amount of time it takes to form a habit?)

I’m going to tape this quote to my bathroom mirror and maybe the refrigerator door, too:

 If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. ~ Thomas Edison

Happy New Year’s Resolution time to you!  ~ Gayla

PS:

bug·a·boo  (bg-b)  n. pl. bug·a·boos