welcome-to-the-new-decade

Life and stuff: Welcome to the new decade

welcome-to-the-new-decadeWe are only four days into 2011 and I have already; a) visited someone who is gravely ill in hospital, b) spoken to a very dear friend whose mother passed away and, c) had my grandmother tell me in all seriousness that she’s ‘on the way out’.

The reason I am sharing this information is not to depress you. It’s to give you a good, hard kick up the butt; the same kick that I am giving myself.

What do you want to do this year?

Most people will say something involving career, relationships, money and health.

Now answer this: What would you do this year if you knew you were going to drop dead on December 31st?

Are your answers the same? Probably not. I am guessing that the second set of answers involve more risk, more hedonism, more heart.

My question is: Why not do the things on the second list?

Here’s my sensible list:

1. Save money for a house deposit

2. No fights with anyone, for any reason

3. Stop drinking as much

4. Go hang-gliding

5. Eat at Tetsuya’s

6. Learn burlesque dance

Here’s my ‘I’m going to die on December 31st’ list:

1. Have a baby

2. Walk around Paris

3. Get a short story published in The Paris Review

4. Wear a couture gown to a ball

5. Go to Japan and hang out in the hot springs with snow monkeys

6. Plant the garden of my dreams

7. Meet Sir David Attenborough

8. Get a tattoo sleeve

9. Invent something that will help save the world!

Tell me, wild adventurers, what are you going to do this year?

4 comments on “Life and stuff: Welcome to the new decade

  1. There is a lot of traveling on this year and unfinished projects 1 through 7 that need to be seen to. I think that kind of ruins any chance of saving any money this year 🙂

    I do like your dinner at Tetsuya’s, that would be something that I would love to do.

  2. What a wonderful blog post, Emma! Hmm let me see. You’re right, it would change everything. My last-year-on-earth resolutions are not quite as exciting as yours – although I too would hang out in Japanese hot springs! I would also probably choose to have a baby (I will not think yet about how this might be logistically possible). I would make more effort to get out and see my friends and family, and eat a lot of chocolate. I would travel THE ENTIRE WORLD and I would probably quit my job and read lots of books. I would also write a book. I would wear fabulous dresses that cost lots of money. And I would never go on facebook. There.

    PS I eagerly await your publication in The Paris Review!

  3. 1. eat a Burmese salad in Burma
    2. lie on a big green patch of lawn with 12 or so puppies for a whole day
    3. go diving off the unbleached spot on Great Barrier Reef
    4. write an ace novel
    5. play with the orangutans in Borneo
    6. take my dog on a road trip
    7. grow boobs
    8. do a “This Town’s In a Song I Like” tour of america
    9. Go for a swim in a tea tree lake
    10. Make everyone i love a mixed tape
    Note: This comment was submitted by Joey Rochford but due my technical ineptitude, I accidentally deleted it. Sorry Joey!

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