Red Cedar

11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

Do I really have eleven things my life doesn’t need in 2011? Eleven seems like an awful lot…..

1. Clutter around the house. An obvious one, right? 5-15%  of items in any house (if not more) or not only unnecessary but annoying in the amount of space they take up. Before January 1st, I am going to devote a couple of days to cleaning up the problem spaces – including the basement, the bedroom, and the kitchen cupboards to see if I can reduce that which is in the way of our living space.
2. My union leadership aspirations. I think I’ve blogged here about this more than once in the last week so enough said.
3. My fear of graduate school, and of not being smart enough to succeed. The only end to this is going to be in the doing of it. Applying to the SFU program, getting accepted, and getting myself enrolled next fall. I don’t know if this will change my life, but it will put me on the path to finishing something I’ve always wanted to accomplish – an M.A.
4. My worn out underthings and tights. Seriously, I buy a new pair of underwear but do I throw out the old ones with the crap elastic and the holes? No. They just hang around in the drawers, getting pulled out and tossed back in every morning when I am getting dressed. See 1. above for how I’m going to deal with this.
5. The spider mites eating my bell pepper plant in the bookshed. Tomorrow I’m going out to see if I can find an organic remedy for this problem – my life will be improved how? Fresh peppers in wintertime are worth the effort.
6. Debt. We don’t have a lot of personal debt outside of the mortgage, but this is definitely something I don’t need in 2011 and I’m working on paying down my credit card and line of credit when I can with a commitment to using cash instead of plastic.
7. The comments sections on news sites and hateful blogs or websites. Really, why am I upsetting myself all the time with continual reminders that many people are just plain mean? I just have to stop reading these for real, no cheating, no peeking.
8. My procrastinating ways. I hate to admit it but I am a bit of slacker when it comes down to just getting things done – particularly anything I consider work (like my job, or creative writing which is harder than you would think). The only way I know to address this is to start each day with productive tasks, rather than getting sucked in the email, facebook, twitter-verse – and save the goofing off until mid-afternoon. Other way around and I never get to what needs doing. Overall, I know my life would be way less stressful and I would feel a lot better about myself if I could overcome these bad habits.
9. My sometimes negative self-opinion. I feel like I’ve done some work on this in the last year – which is how I got to a place where I could make a decision based on my real desires rather than a sense of loyalty (grad school vs. my union) – but it continues by recognizing my strengths rather than focusing on my flaws and by continuing to involve myself in affirming circles of people.
10. The hurts of 2010. Not that there have been too many hurts this year (It’s been a good one – what with the marriage and all), but still there was at least one betrayal that I’m still feeling raw about, and some other incidents involving friends that I’m carrying a little frustration over still. These I need to let go, whether it means letting go the friendships as well I’m not sure about.
11. The N on my vehicle. I got my “New Driver” License eight years ago and I still have never bothered to retest in order to get my full Class Five License, mostly because of a grudging feeling about graduated licensing and how it costs double which doesn’t seem right or fair. Be that as it may, I’m a decent driver and would really love to get rid of the “N” stigma about now – so time to book an appointment with ICBC in the early new year.

Coming up with eleven was easier than I thought – I suppose it’s true that we carry around many things which are entirely unnecessary – some of which are even harmful. Time to work through some of those!

I made a lot of decisions in 2010, though I’m not sure which I would consider “wise” and which would simply fall into the category of pragmatic – as in decisions that had to be made the way they were. Bargaining decisions definitely were pragmatic. The decision to tear down our garage and build a studio was also somewhat pragmatic – I had the money and the garage was going to fall down anyway….. and I haven’t lived with any of my decisions long enough to decide whether they were wise or not given the way they might play out.

But on reflection, the decision I feel the most unburdened by is my resolve to not run for my union position or any higher office in the coming year. After years of traveling up the ladder of political leadership, I was stopped short this summer when I realized I was continuing to strive out of habit more than desire for the role I sought.  And as much as I recognize my competence and ability to do the job (not to mention all the training I’ve had over the years), I have a visceral reaction against the travel, stress and negativity that I know go with the terrain.

And so, this fall through all the other craziness of bargaining and ratification votes, I’ve been informing people of this decision. Making it real by removing my name from the ring, feeling a certain gladness at knowing I can go to our convention in May without having to prove myself to two hundred people for 72-hours straight (after having to prove myself for the last three years, five years, how long has it been?).

Instead I am making room for my real desire to come back to me – a focus on home, family and community, perhaps some higher education (that long-lost master’s degree is calling), and possibly even looking for other work as a way to redirect my energy.

I don’t know if this decision is a forever-type of decision – or just one for the next few years. What I do know is it feels exactly right for now, and I’m feeling a lot more hopeful for having made it.

As my relationship with Brian was developing three years ago, one of the things we agreed on right away is that we both wanted to live in a home where the doors were open to our friends and family. Where dinner parties, backyard bbqs, and celebratory functions of all kinds were not occasional… but frequent enough events to characterize our home, to imprint warmth and companionship throughout.

We’ve been in our house now for about twenty months (coming up on two years – how does that happen?), and in that time we’ve hosted at least a dozen dinner parties, two wedding celebrations (one of them our own), a few birthdays, meetings of our neighbours group, and several impromptu backyard hang-out sessions with friends. With the addition of our “Bookshed” and hot tub last spring, we created more useable social space in our yard that got lots of thumbs ups over the summer. And we’ve got more of the same planned for 2011, as well as some Village Vancouver workshops and the like I’m sure.

It probably goes without saying that the most memorable gathering at our home this year was our commitment ceremony and party (which followed on the heels of our very tiny legal wedding ceremony on the island). About forty-five people crowded themselves into our small living room to witness and participate in the vows that B. and I shared with each other – my friend T. “officiating” by helping to secure and maintain our space, many of our guests sharing words to honor our life and the home we have created together. Beautiful, humbling and definitely tear-inducing (and not just in me either!)

And after all that incredible communion of love and words was shared? Well then we just got down to a serious par-tay….. Two and a half cases of wine, I don’t know how much beer, two table-loads of food, an *incredible* cake made by our friend Jill, and a bottle of Amarula were consumed between five pm and two in the morning when the party actually ended (the remaining guests, naked in the hot tub) – and it was all super fabulous, replete with wine-soaked love and conversations all night long.

And it was the conversations, of course, the meeting of our friends from various places that tickled me at my core everytime I looked around our house at the people knit together in bright conversation. My really good friend A. came all the way from LA and for the first time ever was introduced to my Vancouver  crowd (many who said – “that’s the guy you were hiking with when you broke your ankle?”), friends from Victoria descended and camped in our house, and people who had never met previously just generally got along with each other – laughed and told stories, and found out some new things about the world.

Wild and crazy? No. But that’s not the hallmark of a great party to me. Warm, sociable, diverse, friendly, and meaningful are some of the words I would choose to describe this most valued of gatherings in 2010. And although we can’t replicate a commitment party every year, I hope the spirit of it lives in all our planned social gatherings upcoming (next one, open house on Xmas eve!) I haven’t written much about this party here because it happened during a particular rush of activity in my life – so I want to say a belated thank-you to all you awesome folks who came and shared such an incredible night with us!