Day 1: 40 days 'til 40

Last year, my friend Sarah and I came up with 40 things to do on each of the 40 days until her 40th birthday. This year, it's MY turn to turn 40 (eek?!), and I can't think of any more fun thing to do than to celebrate for 40 days with my wonderful friend and birthday twin :). Oh, and our birthdays? March 8, to save you the trouble of counting.

So, here goes!

Day 1, Jan 27, 2010:

Today we are each thinking of a word for our year. OK, you know how no one keeps New Year's Resolutions? Yeah, I thought so, seeing as how you probably made a few that have been all-but-abandoned only one month into the new year. Well, the word for the year is a way to be thinking about embracing a positive change that you can easily remember and reference.

I at least plan to embrace my word for the next 40 days, and see how it goes. Then we'll take it from there.

I hope Sarah won't mind if I share her word publicly, because I like it, and I think it illustrates the goal. Her word is "connected", as in relationships. So, doing this 40 days 'til 40, which connects her with me (and hopefully with her family, as some of the things we'll do are family-oriented), will help her with her word of the year.

And my word (drum roll...)? "Unwind". Yeah, I'm waaaaay too high-strung, anxious, and uptight (though if you saw me 20 years ago, I was much worse then, so I guess that's something to celebrate). Unwind here has a connotation of more than just physical relaxing - i.e. reading books, hot baths, massage, etc. - but also mental relaxation. Taking a little more time in the morning so I don't get uptight and snap at my family, stepping back from anxious thoughts at work to analyze what is going on, realizing that I don't have to be in control all the time. Hmm, that's a tall order. I'll settle for simply improving even a little bit in this area, and keeping the word "unwind" in mind for the next 40 days.