I'll take a huge plate of Life, with a side of Enjoyment and lots of Awesome, please.

Have you noticed that I've been kind of...quiet lately? Online, I mean.

Well, two major items have filled my waking hours this month:

1. I moved. I'm in California's Bay area now, like the place I've been talking about relocating to since I started this blog. My mom and I actually drove out here from North Carolina. It was pretty epic. (I'll blog about it later, mainly because it will give me an excuse to post some awesome pictures.)
   
   
2. I've owed Joanna a new draft of Ever After 2 since Christmas. I did part of my revision when I was in Montana for Christmas, part of it on the road, and part of it when I arrived here in Berkeley.
   

This is Red Rocks Park in Arizona, pic taken in car.
Ten points if you can spot the ghost of the ms literally looming over this scene!
(It was on the dashboard.)

Yesterday, I finally finished and sent it back in.

My immediate thoughts were: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!! I have free time again! I can sleep in! Read books! Explore the area!! Do research for my next project!!!

Less than an hour later, when the euphoria ebbed slightly, a few other facts sank in:

1. I just moved. To someplace far, far away from everything familiar in my life.
2. I only have one job. (But it's an awesome job. So awesome that I was tempted to write I don't have a job - it seems too cool to be work.)
3. I don't have a plan.
4. I don't have a long term apartment.
5. I don't even have a place to stay past next Tuesday.

Some people might call this "reality," but I tend not to like those people.

Anyway, I had a brief freak out. That's natural when you realize you've made a change you can't back out of. You second guess yourself no matter how long you've been talking about taking the action you just took.

But I realized something. - This is exactly what my 2012 resolution is all about.

Have I mentioned my New Year's resolution yet? I don't think so. It's not really a typical one. It's more like a mental habit I want to work on - something that will make my brain a more enjoyable place to be. I did a similar thing last year, which actually made my brain a more comfortable place.

Here my resolution for 2012:

Life is a journey.
You can't control where you are. You can only control what direction you're heading.
Enjoy the whole trip.

Yeah, I know. It's a long one. And also the kind of thing you would see embroidered on your favorite grandma's pillow amidst cute thread-stitched kittens.

2011, for me, was marked with impatience and frustration. Most of it stemmed from me being dissatisfied with where I was - whether that be how far I was in a revision/draft, how much blogging I'd accomplished, the place I was living, and being impatient to move onto the next stage.

Here's the underlying belief that caused both the impatience and frustration: that if I reached --insert some sort of achievement here--, then I would finally be happy.

Here's the truth: I will always be able to freak out about something, to be dissatisfied with something.

True Story: I found this in Books-a-Million last October.

It made me laugh and send it to my best friend.
Great book too - The House of Spirits sparked an Isabel Allende reading frenzy for a whole semester in high school.

But honestly, I have a great life. I'm reasonably healthy (although I would appreciate not being allergic to half the planet). I drive my favorite car in the entire universe - past, present, and probably future. I have my dream job.

Also, I only get one life. Okay, unless I'm reincarnated, which might be cool. But definitely, only one life as Shelby Bach. I need to enjoy it RIGHT NOW. I need to appreciate even the stuff that scares me, because the only constant thing about life is change. I won't always have this.

So, this move - It's something I want. This is something I've wanted for a long time.

Exhibit A, evidence that I've wanted this for a while:
This map has been hanging in my bedroom for the past year,
reminding me where I want to go.
(It was a gift from a very dear friend.)

I am going to enjoy it.

Because it will only happen once.

And I've basically decided to just have an awesome life. :-)

The Brazen Life, or 2011 is going to be epically awesome. :-D

Okay, I know that the definition says brazen has roots in brass,
but I always think fire.
(Maybe because dyslexia runs in my family. Brazenly -> blaze. Totally possible.)

In 2011, I want to live brazenly.

Yes, this is the resolution post. I'm been putting it off again and again. I have my reasons. I'll show you those reasons in a sec. Actually, those reasons kind of explain why I've decided to pick this resolution.

(Disclaimer: in this post, you'll soon see exactly how odd and insane it can be inside my head. Be afraid. Be v. afraid, and maybe even run away while you still can.)

Anyway, in 2011, I want to live brazenly. Unapologetically. With boldness and flair and the kind of wide-open passion that is practically contagious. I want to be vivid and real and bursting with verve. Like that Thoreau dude, who said he wanted to suck the marrow out of life.


Thoreau = The guy that Robin William quotes in Dead Poets' Society

That's what I've been meaning to say for weeks, but every time I sat down to write, these little doubts crept up:

1. I can't write a resolution post. Everyone has written a resolution post. In fact, everybody wrote their resolution post maybe three weeks ago, and you're just completely behind the 8-ball. (Obviously, I decided not to care.)
   
   
2. Brazenly may not be the best word. I mean, it has a negative connotation.
   

   bra·zen

   adj.

   1. Marked by flagrant and insolent audacity. See Synonyms at shameless.

   2. Having a loud, usually harsh, resonant sound: "sudden brazen clashes of the soldiers' band" (James Joyce).

   3. Made of brass.

   4. Resembling brass, as in color or strength.

   tr.v. bra·zened, bra·zen·ing, bra·zens

   To face or undergo with bold self-assurance: brazened out the crisis.

   ---

   [Middle English brasen, made of brass, from Old English bræsen, from bræs, brass.]

   ---

   brazen·ly adv.

   brazen·ness n.

   (But I totally love this word. Just the way it sounds. I'm a sucker for words with "z" in them. :-P)
   
   
3. Unapologetically really isn't the best word either. For one thing, I'm not even totally sure it's a real word. Also, what if people think that I'm one of those punks who never apologize? (But this word has been beating in my head for the past few weeks, right along with brazenly.)
   
   
4. What if people think I have no self-esteem? I mean, if I'm spending a blog post on all my doubts, it's probably not hard to believe that I get paralyzed by them. (But that's just not true. Sometimes, I'm a little too confident. To the point of even sounding very sure when I am completely BSing. For example:
   
   Me: "No, Mom. Of course you didn't leave your purse in the car."
   
   Mom: "Are you positive?"
   
   Me: "Absolutely."
   
   Mom: "Then what's this behind the seat?" *pulls purse out*
   
   Me: "Oh. Oops. Hahahahaha."
   
   And yes, this is a true story.)
   
   
5. [This one happened more recently.] I can't write a blog post about all the voices in my head! People will think I'm neurotic like whoa. (But I'm pretty sure most people I know guess that I'm a little neurotic anyway. It kind of goes with the writer territory.)
   

It's safe to say that I seriously over-think everything.

But remember the Internal Editor demon? It's like he's come away from the revision desk and started following me around in regular, every day life. He shows up not when I'm doing things, but after I've done them. For example, I'll send an email. Then I'll reread the email, biting my fingernails and wondering, "Why did I have to write that line? That's a stupid line. What if [the recipient] think I'm [insert negative adjective here]?"

So, when I say that I want to live brazenly, I mean I want to gag the Internal Editor. I want to cut through all the chatter in my head (see above) and chart my own course.

I want to be bold. Brazen even. Like these guys:



I'm not gonna be taking up skateboarding or diving off freakishly tall ladders, but I totally want to be the little girl circa 3:46, who can parallel park her training-wheeled bike in one smooth skid. And how cute is her bow? :-P