"Woman, 42, discovers she is already LIVING her New Year's Resolution.",

I'm 42.

For most of my life, I have wanted to be a writer.

Yet, when people asked me what exactly it was I wrote or wanted to write - even as recently as last week - I would pause for a moment, as I struggled to frame the answer for myself as much as for them.

The standard answer is usually "anything" as I have dabbled in most forms, from poetry and short stories to newspaper and magazine articles and editorial content, with a recent foray into web content and copywriting. I also usually neglect to mention that I blog, for some reason forgetting that composing my thoughts into a 500-1000 word post is certainly a writing exercise, and occasionally produces something actually worth reading. And, like many or most writers, I mention that I hope to have at least one good book in me...somewhere.

Yet, for most of these last 40-odd years, I have done everything BUT become the writer I have always believed I would be.

Something I read today has crystallised all I've been pondering on recently, in terms of my plans and direction in the New Year. One of the incredibly inspirational writer/bloggers I am presently enjoying, Barbara Winters of Joyfully Jobless, wrote a wonderful newsletter suggesting 10 things to do instead of making flimsy and short-lived resolutions. (I am planning on working on her suggestions once the wee man has gone to sleep tonight...a much better use of New Year's Eve for me than drinking champers and partying late, both of which give me headaches these days! Sign up for her Joyfully Jobless News if you want to know what I'll be up to...and no, I'm not paid to say that.).

Barbara quoted Cher as having said that her greatest fear was not living as well as she knew how to live and those words, and the ideas they triggered within, have hummed through my skull and my bones for most of this morning, until I had to sit down and write this post.

"That is my fear", my bones sing, and I realise how a lifetime's passion for learning and self-examination and truth and well-being are guiding me to this moment, to these pivotal thoughts on the eve of a new year, and a new decade.

As you know, this has been a very introspective year for me. A relationship of over 10 years ended last year, and the dreams and plans I held for the future have had to be examined and re-framed in the light of the very significant changes this ending brought to my life. Joyfully, I have realised that I am actually in a better position to acknowledge and achieve my true heart's desires than I was while in that particular relationship.

I have taken concrete steps towards these goals, by enrolling for university and taking baby steps towards a freelance career. For every forward step I take I stagger backwards two, under the force of self-doubt and procrastination and an over-abundance of gurus and how-to's and must-do's. It is mostly self-inflicted, as I feast at the buffet of information online while shaping my vision to become a successful freelancer and entrepreneur, and I'm not missing the opportunity to beat myself up about it.

Yet I also recognise that out of this struggle the seeds of my new future are being sown, and I trust - yes, I really DO - that they (and I) will flourish. My life has been an adventure in learning to live well, even those times when I seemed to doing the opposite. Many times, the people in my life have credited me with helping them find hope and inspiration and direction in their own journeys to living well; occasionally a bittersweet pleasure when I reflected on my own situation at the time, stalled (or so I thought) in one way or another on my own journey.

Ever a work in progress, I confess that that fear will not leave me, no matter what I achieve with the rest of my life. But rather than call it a fear, I prefer to see it as a motivating force, and I have placed my own interpretation of that quote on the top of my monitor, to remind myself every day, not just for New Year, what it's all about:

"I will live my life as fully and as well as I know how to live."

Since I'm always learning, every single day, I know I will find new ways to fulfill that aim, and to share that knowledge with the world.

At 42, I can finally call myself a writer. It's what I know. I might not be the best writer in the world, or even an extensively published one (yet!), but it's one of the things that makes my soul sing.

In 2010, I will be living my life as I fully as I can, one day at a time. Read about it here, or in other places shortly to be unveiled. And go gently into the new year and decade yourselves, with love and light in your hearts. Happy New Year!

A (Very) Short Career in Politics: Pt 2

Hmmm...serious bit of bad soap opera, leaving you hanging like that - I didn't plan it that way! That's no way to treat my 17 remaining patient and dedicated subscribers; "Love youse all!" as a particularly articulate (not) Aussie boxer is wont to say. (With particular linky love to my dear Cecily, who was egging me on to finish almost before I'd stopped typing...LOL)

So, the phone call.

The party leader is a very nice bloke. We have enjoyed getting to know each other, and kicking around ideas the last few weeks. He sounded distinctly uncomfortable as he told me that certain members of the party, all from one community group, felt that they would be "better represented" on council by another candidate (from their group) who had only just decided he was willing to have a shot at it.

As background to that, this group has been working particularly hard together over nearly two years to represent their village (mine, as it happens) in the fight against a particularly odious development proposed for it (Hardie Holdings - will mean something to the Aussies amongst you). They felt that this candidate had more experience, in this issue, in reading the associated reports and EIR's and DPs and LEPs (Environmental Impact Reports/Development Proposals/Local Environmental Plans) etc...and he did.

(But that is not all Council is about. And I'm a pretty fast learner, for a blonde. But I digress...)

Plus, this group discussed it amongst themselves, without raising it at the party meetings. It only came out in a private conversation with the party leader, the day after our last meeting, which lead to his phone call. So much for increased transparency and honesty, the bedrock of our campaign for council!

My initial feelings were of anger and defiance. I told him I was not prepared to just quietly back down and wanted to think about it. He was really supportive, very disappointed too at the way this issue had been raised, but able to see both points of view - we both have particular strengths as candidates, and either would make a good running partner from his point of view. Also, and importantly, the community groups form the support team for this little local party - any bad feelings or dissent risks undermining the whole team. We agreed that, unless either one of us was prepared to back down, we should put the #2 slot to a secret ballot of the party at the next meeting as the fairest way to decide. Since we were all about to go away on holiday, that was nearly 2 weeks away.

The next 24 hours was quite interesting. What had been a little head cold suddenly decided to become laryngitis - with so much to think about and talk about, suddenly I couldn't talk at all! It was great. Everything had come to a screaming halt - and as soon as I realised this, I started to look at why, and to wonder what the message was for me.

That's when I realised how much I was putting on the line if I actually got on Council - my life, and most especially, the wee man's life.

We've been through a lot in the last couple of years, and particularly the last 6 months. I have been very conscious of a certain amount of anger he has felt towards me, as the one he perceives as the instigator of the breakup of his family unit. I understand that, and want to be able to work with him to help him heal those feelings. And I realised that my Council dream would take me further away from him, and give him more reason to be angry at me...and that was the last thing I wanted.

So, a couple of days later, when I had something of a voice I called the party leader back and told him to drop me...waaay down the ticket, where I had no chance of making it onto council. I am still going to run, to support the party and make a group voting ticket possible, and because I believe in what they are trying to achieve, and because it will be a valuable learning experience. There's no sour grapes - I'm still a bit peeved and disappointed at the way the local group handled the matter, but I'm a big girl, and I know politics is always a dirty game...even this close to home.

All the more reason for me to run in 4 years time, when the wee man is much older, and I'm a little wiser, and backed by people I can trust and who can trust me...

Life's Little Ironies

Am I the only one who has noticed the inherent irony in the title of this blog, and the blog description, and the recent events of my life?

A sub-heading might read: Note to Self - Loooook Out!

Perhaps you thought the choice of name was intentional - after all, many people whinge and gripe about their relationships and their partners without any need or wish to do anything more than vent everyday frustrations.

But really, when I chose the name for this blog, I felt that I just about had it all: a husband who loved me, a longed-for and precious new baby, a re-location to the countryside of my childhood, and the time and space to explore some creative dreams. Only, I wasn't quite sure how I was going to deal with the re-ordered priorities of my life.

Let this serve as an object lesson for you all - the point of that old saying "Be careful what you wish for...you might get it" is that sometimes when our dreams arrive, we are not ready for them, or they may come in a form we were not expecting, or with conditions we did not understand.

The true magic comes in recognising that even though the time or the path or the form is unexpected, we have still traveled closer to our heart's dreams, and have grown through the journey. We are now better equipped to move into those dreams and make them our realities.

On the final stretch now...

...this time next week NaBloPoMo will be over. I know I will be happy not to feel I have to turn up here every day, but I want to continue to enjoy arriving at the page and sharing my world with you. The connections I have made from this experience so far, the new friendships developing, are an unexpected and entirely welcome bonus.

My brain is fizzling and popping with the fermentation of a plan; the possibilities unfolding at the moment are suggesting a way to realise a long-held dream.

Here in the village we live in, there is only a general store, a garage, and a little bric-a-brac/secondhand store in what was once the butcher's. The lady who is running this store has had enough, and plans to have closed the store by the New Year.

I know the rental on this little store is very cheap, and I know that this village, this area, is crying out for a little coffee house - the sort with quirky little tables and comfy chairs, a wall of books, piles of magazines, fabulous coffee, and the smell of fresh baking lingering in the air. A place to meet, greet, eat and bleat... ;) Just across the road from the preschool and the park; just down the street from the post office, on a popular tourist route, and fifteen minutes from our major regional centre - the location is perfect. There is nothing similar for at least 15 minutes drive in any direction, and there is certainly a cachement of consumers who would be thrilled to have such a place on their doorstep, not to mention the tourist buses. (Plus there is one seventeen-house development going up round the corner, and the spectre of another larger one, more unwelcome, still to be decided. The village is about to grow exponentially.) The building is not ideal, but will work for start-up - it will need money spent on it to make it licensing-compliant.

Money is something I don't have, but what I do have is just about everything else: a vision, passion, experience (in business management and hospitality, plus Cafe Appreciation 101), community connections. It's those connections which a friend reminded me of this morning, as I mused out loud about this idea. "Go to the community and find shareholders", he said, as if it was a perfectly reasonable idea - and the more I thought about it, it was.

So I have the beginnings of a plan. I've spent the afternoon pulling down licensing requirements and business plan templates from the ether. I'm going to plug in the facts, pull together a plan and start canvassing some of the people of my community. This is an idea with legs and life - I can see the potential here, not just for myself and my dream, but for the community. I can see how we could create something that we can enjoy and share and ultimately profit from when we are ready to move in new directions.

It may all end up pie in the sky, but right now it tastes sweet.