New Years Resolutions

I can tell I've changed a lot this year because when I started to think about new years resolutions, this year was much different from previous years.

My new years' resolutions for 2018 (any many previous years) involved losing ten pounds, saving money, paying off debt and getting promoted (for more money).

While the specific details are not yet nailed down, my new years' resolutions for 2019 involve:

• spending more time with loved ones
• Volunteering
• being present and more connected to my students while I'm teaching
• being in a state of love, gratitude and appreciation as much as possible throughout the day 
• Giving more (being more of a giver than a taker) 
• Finding ways to serve others 
• Stop caring what others think 

Can you see the shift? In previous years I had always made resolutions and goals that involved my own personal benefit. There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight or wanting a promotion, but these were all for superficial reasons like wanting to look good in a bikini and wanting a bigger salary. If you want to lose weight for health reasons, to be able to stick around longer for your kids and grandkids, that's a completely different thing. If you want to earn more money to be better able to care for your family's needs, that's different from my underlying reasons for wanting a higher salary which basically involved more shopping and surf trips for me, and me alone. 

As 2019 approaches, I realize that my resolutions involve serving and connecting with others. While I never saw my diagnosis as a death sentence, there's nothing like a life-threatening illness to make you see the bigger picture. The bigger picture. Sure, losing ten pounds and finding your jeans a little bit looser is nice, but when I die, I'm not going to care about that, nor is that going to foster genuine and meaningful happiness. A promotion or a raise is great. But what is that extra money going to buy that will really make you happier? I mean, genuine, meaningful happiness. I guess it could if you use the extra money to spend on others, towards the needy. 

One of the first things I thought about when I was diagnosed with cancer was....I'm not ready to die yet because I haven't done anything to contribute. I had this overwhelming feeling of desire to contribute to something bigger than myself. Not in some grand way necessarily, but I came here to serve those less fortunate. I also thought about the fact that my whole life had been about fun and pleasure: surfing, salsa dancing, traveling, and anything that I wanted to do. I lived a very selfish existence when I know I came here to have a more selfless existence. I wasn't being true to myself. My whole life has been about me, when my whole life really is about others. 

I hope everyone reading this has a Happy New Year! Thank you to everyone for your continued love, prayers and support. Hope you all had a great Christmas!! 

Turning 36 years Young

My beautiful and amazing older sister April arranged for me to have my first ever blow-out at a blow bar, by a 22 year-old gay guy named Haze. Now, before you get your head stuck in a gutter, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, "blow-out", it means my hair got washed and blow-dried, curled, ironed and pumped with all kinds of products, plus 2 liters of hair-spray, and who knows what else they did to make my hair look amazing.

I told Haze, my male hair-designer/ new gay BFF,  that it was my 36th birthday. And then he said....."Wow! You don't even look 26!" I could have hugged him right then and there. "Not even 26?!" I didn't correct him. When he offered me a second mimosa before he had even finished washing my hair, I decided then and there he was getting a big tip. I decided to look past the fact that my mimosa now tasted like hairspray.

Now, with red-carpet hair, and 2 hairspray flavored mimosas down, we made our way over to Eve Encinitas, my FAVORITE vegan, mostly-gluten free restaurant, and SURPRISE, SURPRISE! All my friends. My sister April surprised me by reserving a big table and inviting all my friends, many whom I hadn't seen in a while. So fun. 

This was definitely a different birthday in the sense that I had no desire to go out and party. I mostly just wanted a quiet birthday, so a nice vegan lunch with friends and a blowout with free mimosas, not to mention the far-fetched comment that I looked way too young to be 26 made for a perfect day. The day also started out with a solo hike and a solo sunset walk along the shore. 

Turning 36. Another year older. I really have no complaints about getting older. I wouldn't trade my 36 year-old self for my 26-year-old self. That was just a disaster. Yeah, life was fun and lots of parties, but no, thanks. I prefer the older, wiser, more cognizant version of myself. I still feel this way even after the hard toll that my body has undergone this year. I aged a lot this year, in a lot of different ways. At my frailest point, just a couple months ago, I felt as if my body were that of an 80 year old. For a few weeks, I even walked with a walker. But then a few weeks later, when I got my strength back, I was using the walker to sit on, riding downhill on my street, catching enough speed to feel young again.

And many people don't know this, because, it's fairly new information, but I will let you in on a secret: aging is actually somewhat reversible. Reversible? Aging? What? Yeah, you heard right. Reversible. I'm not talking Benjamin Button style, but say you smoked cigarettes for 10 years and then quit, took up an ultra-healthy diet and became a yoga instructor. The damage that you did from smoking those 10 years could possibly be reversed. There's a lot of research coming out in support of the fact that certain factors, what we put into our body, our lifestyle and even how connected we are, play a role in the aging process, and that aging could even be reversed. Wow.

I bring this up because it gives me hope that all the "aging" I've gone through this year (with all the treatments, medications and stress) could be only temporary as I work on getting my strength back and getting back to my healthy self. 

I recently read an article that discussed a recent study demonstrating that our attitudes about getting older play a role in how we age physically and mentally. The study found that participants who had a positive attitude about getting older had actually aged less than those with the same age who had a negative attitude about getting older. So instead of worrying about getting older, instead of getting botox, we should just embrace that number, detach from it. It's just a number. Cliche, I know. But, the crazy thing is that if you have a negative attitude toward aging, that is you dread turning 40, 50, 60, etc., you may be unintentionally giving yourself more gray hairs, more wrinkles and shortening your telomeres. (read more about it here) 

There are two numbers that I'm personally trying to detach from. My age and my weight. In our culture, for women, the younger and the thinner, the better. It's hard to overcome cultural brainwashing, but once you identify the cultural undertow, you can choose your own attitude toward age. I say embrace it!