There is something about turning the page in my wall calendars and ripping the old month off of my desk calendar that makes me feel so bold…Like I can do anything I set my mind to do.  It’s just a day, the first day of any month, but there is something in me, on the start of a new month that makes me believe all things are possible.  To be clear, I have in my adult life made some very bad decisions and choices and acted wrongly in a variety of ways…but, I have also made some wonderful decisions and fabulous choices and acted rightly more times than not…Today, on the first of the month, a raw, fall, windy, gusty, and gray day, I feel good about the next 30 days in front of me.  I feel in control.  I feel like I can make things happen.  I feel ready for action.

Driving home from work late yesterday afternoon, I was reminded why fall is my favorite time of year…the trees on my street are several shades of orange and when I looked to the west, the sunset made the sky a glorious shade of lilac.  Purple and orange are my two favorite colors, in that order, and silver is number three, just in case you care…anyway I digress.  I often jot down goals or thoughts in my journals or notebooks regarding changes I would like to make, in my life or with myself, or just ideas in general about decisions, but I seldom tell anybody what they are, as my fear of failure is strong.  I used to keep journals and spiral notebooks and pencils always in my purse or vehicle at all times because when a thought comes into my head, I often simply feel compelled to write it down.  Now with a smartphone, I have an entire “notebook” available to me at all times, AND I don’t even need to search for a pencil!  I looked at the beautiful shades of fall all around me yesterday and had to pull over to the shoulder and make notes…what I want to be different in this most beautifully colored time of year…changes I want to make while the world around me excites me, and while the colors take my breath away…before the landscape is dry and dead and brown and empty and colorless…

I slept poorly last night, which is not unusual given my age and frequently unbalanced hormone level, but I realized I was thinking and over thinking about the same things throughout the tossing and turning.  When I finally raised my white flag in surrender early this morning and got out of bed, I thought that perhaps my sleeplessness is or was a sign, more than a symptom of age…I do love signs…that it is time to do something rather than my more common behavior which is to write something…I woke up this morning knowing that there are things I have to change and I have ordered them in my mind by level of importance, but the fact of the matter, is that they all matter.  I have to make decisions and choices that reflect those changes and goals, or they simply won’t be achieved.  Saying them and doing them are two different things…I am a woman who loves words, but I need more than words to accomplish these changes.  I must do, not say…today I feel verb…I feel like I can do anything, and I have 30 days to prove it to myself…when you grew up loving School-House Rock, you know what it means to wake up and feel this way, it’s more than words indeed…Just in case you forgot, here is how the VERB song starts…it’s a good way to start a new month… anything can happen…

I get my thing in action  (Verb!)
To be, to sing, to feel, to live  (Verb!)
That’s what’s happening

I put my heart in action (Verb!)
To run, to go, to get, to give (Verb!)
(You’re what’s happening)

That’s where I find satisfaction, yeah! (Yeah!)
To search, to find, to have, to hold
(Verb! To be bold)
When I use my imagination (Verb!)
I think, I plot, I plan, I dream – Turning words into creation

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