word of the day.

While checking my mail just now, I spied the word of the day. It hovered above my inbox in the space usually occupied by links to such informative sites as www.areyouaslackermom.com, or www.coffeefool.com (A shocking secret coffee co's don't want you to know!), and DeclutterFast.com (How To Declutter In Only One Day! When You're Serious About Clutter). The word of today was:

nascent \NAS-uhnt; NAY-suhnt\, adjective:
Beginning to exist or having recently come into existence; coming into being.

It was the first part that caught my attention, the part I really liked, the part about beginning to exist. Maybe it struck me because it's the beginning of a new year, and the beginning of a new year always feels like starting over, like being offered a fresh start after the recent indulgences of the holiday season, turning away from the multitude of mistakes of the previous year. For me, the beginning of the new year, much like a birthday, is also a time to reflect, assess, forgive, forget, and above all else, to resolve.

Every year I make a list of things I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. Not really the typical list of new years resolutions, but more a list of objectives, possibilities, of improvements I'd like to make (in myself, and in my surroundings), hobbies I'd like to consider, new adventures to undertake. I start working on the list in December, and finalize it sometime in January. After writing out the list in my journal, I read it again a few times over the course of a few days, and then set it aside for a while. A few times during the year I review the list, just to get an idea of how I'm faring, and then I review it again at the beginning of the following year. I shy away from concrete resolutions which, knowing myself, can only lead to frustration and disappointment, and stick to more abstract ideas.

Having recently reviewed my resolutions from this time last year (when, as we'll remember, I was living in Minneapolis, in a great little apartment, in a great little neighborhood near the lakes; working at the aqarium, but also at the museum; Minnesota-winter overweight [as pics from the Flanagan wedding can easily corroborate]; generally unhappy, slightly depressed even, with no clue what I'd rather be doing, just knowing that where I was was not where I wanted to be.), it's a surprise I found the drive to move on at all. Even when I allowed myself to dream a little, to embrace the magical possibilities the following year might bring, the best I could do was a modest "find a new job I believe in," and "consider long-term professional goals."

Fortunately, inspiration came from without, during a visit by the cast and crew of the History Channel's excellent-but-now-defunct program, Deep Sea Detectives to dive the aquarium. An evening of jack & diets in the lobby bar with host Richie and underwater videographer Evan opened a world of possibilities, and shortly thereafter I realized another of my new year's resolutions, this one perhaps not so modest then: to be honest with myself. After that night in the bar, I finally accepted what I'd been forcibly ignoring for a long time, that I wanted to dive, that I wanted diving to be my career, that I needed to go somewhere other than Minnesota to make that happen. Scary things to ponder, obviously, but a beginning. The beginning of the existence of what's now a very happy and fulfilling reality.