Resoluting

One of my New Year resolutions for 2024 was to attend more shows. The year started out with seeing a show in Philly with friends and then playing piano for a high school musical*. Next year I’m making this goal even more specific by listing kinds of shows to see with my resolution. The aim here is that even though it’s great to have fun find me, I think I need to be more proactive about getting out there to find fun**.

*Five performances!

**Does that make sense? A lot of times we make plans based on things that pop up in our social media feeds or because friends or acquaintances have done them or want to do them with us. I’m wanting to seek out fun on my own instead of waiting for it to come to me.

The excuses to not do something are a constant battle. It’s been a busy week. I don’t want to leave the dogs. It’s a far drive. I don’t know if the event will be worth it.

But I always come out happier when I push past excuses.

I attended one such event recently. The author, Emily St. John Mandel, was giving an author talk for the 10^th anniversary of her book Station Eleven. The talk would be at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn where she launched her book tour ten years ago. Days later, the event space changed due to high demand*. I gave Lance all the openings to back out. He’d be driving. It was a Friday evening. It was in Brooklyn. It was the last day in a week he’d taken off from work.  

*Which is not at all a surprise considering: 1) Station Eleven was made into an HBO series and 2) two of her other books were on Obama’s favorite book list.

But we went. We had dinner in a cute little cocktail bar. We took a brisk walk to the university where the talk was being held. We were early enough to snag seats in the third row and complimentary glasses of wine.  

How perfect was the wallpaper in the bar’s bathroom?

And it was as inspirational an event as it could possibly be for an aspiring author. To see how one book, her third published book, could change the course of her writing career*—and how even now she is humble and sincere about her writing—was comforting.

*She refused to quit her full-time job during the first year the book was published, uncertain if this was really her *success moment*.

I also had the surprise of learning that her editor and interviewer for the night, Jenny Jackson, was a recently published author whose book I had made the excuses and not gone to an event for earlier in the summer.

*And was still kicking myself over

I bought two signed books and went home smiling.

As you can see, I’m already working on my New Year’s resolutions for 2025. Do you have any yet?