finding Erin

Long ago I swore of new years’ resolutions; I quite frankly don’t believe in them. But I have made some resolutions that have absolutely nothing to do with the new year. Instead, I’m going to call this “Finding Erin.” I said it myself – I’m boring. But I wasn’t always this way. Really, I wasn’t! Once upon a time I had many interests and many ways to occupy my time other than lying on a couch watching pointless pointless television shows…

I used to be quite a fine pianist. Not many of my friends from post-high school probably know that about me. Most of them know I play, or have played in the past, and many of them have seen the piano in my living room, but I don’t think they really understand how good I once was. To be honest, I’m not even sure my own husband realizes it – and that seems bad. I guess I used to play for him a little when we first met, but by then it had already been 7 months since I had really practiced or taken lessons.

I used to dabble in German. Ok so I was never fluent per se, but I could hold basic conversations and communicate things. 4 years of German. Erinnerst du dich, Meg? And I loved it! Carly (my college roommate) and I used to talk in German all the time (although by the end I remembered nothing and Carly still remembered everything, so that was depressing). Now? Nothing.

I used to write all the time. I don’t think I need to back this up with much – view my 900+ entries for more details. And waaayy back – we’re talking 7th and 8th grade way back – I used to actually do some creative writing. Power of the Pen. I won a round once… during the purple donut season of 7th grade and prior to sucking in 8th grade. What happened there?

I took a photography class in high school at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Technically I own 3 cameras. One “real” camera – manual with a bunch of lenses, one “point & shoot” film camera – with a nice panoramic setting (great for things like the Grand Tetons), and one “point & shoot” digital camera. They’re all great cameras, though nothing top of the line by any means. Point was, I used to take pictures ALL THE TIME. Never as good as some of you, but at least I tried. I made the effort and really enjoyed it (at the time I was naive enough to think I was halfway decent at it). Hell I learned how to develop film myself and make prints in a dark room.

I was in band. A lot.

So, as you can see, I’ve not always been so interest-less. And I’ve decided to take action, darnit! Even if I’m still mostly a homebody (I’m going to have to work on Chris before we start going places) I want to be a homebody who DOES stuff at home. I plan on taking small steps… so here’s what’s slated to begin with:

1. I am going to learn Mandarin Chinese. I must listen to at least one podcast every day. This does not mean I have to listen to a new podcast each day since that quite frankly seems like the least effective way to learn. You really have to concentrate to pick up the new stuff, and sometimes I’m just too tired to soak up new information, but I must at least listen to a prior lesson to remember what I’ve learned. (I’ve listened to podcast 1 about 5 times now, podcast 2 twice, and podcast 3 twice in earnest. A couple more times required on podcast 3 methinks.) Furthermore, I sent and email to my friend Nan and told him I was going to set up phone calls once in awhile to practice my Mandarin with him. Although I’d have to be at work in order to not pay for the call, so I’m not sure how we’d work that out, what with the 12 hours difference.

2. I am going to learn how to play piano again. Probably my first step should be to get the darned thing tuned. It’s pretty god-awful at the moment. I sat down tonight to play for a bit (I think I played for about an hour to an hour and a half), started with some nice 4-octave scales and it was practically unbearable. Anyhow, whenever I finally make myself go sit down at the piano and play I just love it. I forgot I felt sick, I forgot I felt tired, I was full of energy and having fun and listening to the beautiful music. Or at least what would have been beautiful music had the piano been tuned and had I not been so rusty. So I definitely need to get my chops back up – I might even just start completely new songs so that my pesky muscle memory doesn’t get in my way. (It’s very difficult to work on finger independence and strength when they somehow still remember a piece so well that they try to do their own thing as if they’re just as strong as the were 6 years ago. Newsflash little buddies, you’re not!)

3. I’m definitely going to read more, and I really really really hope that my virtual book club idea actually takes off. Read a book, have a deadline, jump on my conference call and talk about it! Mmmm how very AP English! And I would actually be reading a real book… not an Agatha Christie or a John Grisham or a whatever it is I’m reading now, but… you know… literature. Not that there’s ANYTHING wrong with the aforementioned types of books – I will continue to read them. But I definitely need a push to get through anything much deeper than that.

So there might be hope for me yet. What do you think?

(indecision)