Getting Started

There's a first time for everything.

First time I've worked without taking cigarette breaks.
First time I've ever blogged.
First time my New Year's resolutions didn't include losing weight.
First time for truly testing that thing they call "will power".

Sometimes things stick the first time you try them. Sometimes they don't. I'm hoping that the non-smoking will stick this first time around. It's both harder and easier than I thought.

Things that stuck:

Reading--definitely a great big sticky one there. Sometimes I've paid for having a larger-than-usual vocabulary, but more often it's enriched my life (and kept me from having to think as much).

Fantasy/Sci Fi. Not sure if this would have happened to me regardless (my inner geek says "Yes") but I convienently blame my dad. Well, he DID give me my first chapter book that I can remember reading, and it was a Sci-Fi book by Andre Norton. I about blew his mind later on when I informed him that Andre was a girl.

Rainbows. I've loved them a long, long time. So far it's not going away. But I can probably point a finger to my early childhood as the source of this unreasoning delight at the color spectrum's display. When you grow up in a room with windows on three sides facing the east, with sky-blue carpet and rainbows on the walls, and you regularily play My Little Ponies, some love of the rainbow is bound to get stuck onto your likes early on. At least that's my excuse.

Things that didn't stick:

Dolls. Just couldn't get into the Barbie-doll thing or other kinds of dolls. Maybe it was because no one in my family was blonde. It's not for lack of maternal instinct (I have it on good authority that I'd make a pretty great mom). Or maybe it was this overriding obsession with horses that got in the way.

First time I tried Magic the Gathering it didn't stick. I was a bit of a geek-snob in high school. A friend of mine tried to show me how to play, thinking (rightly) that it was just the kind of thing I would like. I brushed him off and told him "This is too hard; this is too boring; this is too..." and whatever other excuses I had for not trying something new long enough to get a fair pictureof whether I actually liked it or not.

Thank goodness I learned in the fullness of time that you need to give some things another chance.

What would I have missed out on had I given up after the first failure to stick?

Salad dressing, mayonnaise, ribs. Hated them growing up but now I quite enjoy all three. "They" always said your palatte changes as you grow bigger. I viewed "them" with suspicion.

Skiing. I was completely hopeless that first field trip. It was a struggle just to get up the bunny hill. Couldn't turn for the life of me, but could snowplow like I was being paid to do it. While I can't call myself the best skier in the world, I can get down most of the hills in my native Minnesota without falling down too often.

So here's to being a sticky stubborn silly person to ensure that I never pass by a potential fun thing.

And I really hope that quitting smoking sticks with me. But just in case the first try fails, I will not give up so easily and will learn from my mistakes.