Fabulous

Now that 2011 has arrived perhaps your life feels a little like mine.  Kids return to school, vacation days are used, cookies are no longer an acceptable breakfast food, routine hours of daily operation resume.  As the pinball action of holiday time with flashing lights and sounds fades into memories of ricocheting from celebration to celebration, as the darkness recedes and the light grows through winter into spring, there is newness in the journey.  

Each new year I establish an annual theme.  I can’t recall what began the habit but it is a tradition I love.  Replacing punitive actions I’m going to undertake, a theme shapes the year and still allows for self improvement where needed.  I start ruminating just after Thanksgiving and let thoughts percolate like Grandma’s old coffee amongst smells of sugar cookies and evening fires until the scattered grounds coagulate into an idea declared January 1.  A cup containing “fabulous” brewed for 2011. 

Fabulous seems the perfect word to begin this blog in which I turn to my favorite toys, the dictionary and thesaurus, to look at common words and see where they lead me for the week. 

Fabulous has four meanings listed on dictionary.com

1.  almost impossible to believe
2.  exceptionally good or unusual
3.  told about in fables
4.  known about only in myths or legends

So, let’s begin 2011 declaring ourselves fabulous.  Note there is not a hint of “perfect” or “flawless” in the definition.  I certainly am neither of those – nor do I want to be (impossible goals are just a drag).  But fabulous, that sounds fun!  And aren’t we already fabulous?  Tell me that you and I don’t fall into some section of that definition?  Someone somewhere has told a story about each of us that is legendary – our parents, school friends, our children?  And by our merely being created we are all exceptionally good or unusual! 

We can all be fabulous together and no one has to be “Fabulous the Greater” or “Fabulous the Lesser” because fabulous is neither finite nor measured in comparisons.  Who doesn’t want to live as a fabulous person in a world full of the mutually fabulous?  We don’t do things to get fabulous; we are fabulous so we do certain things.  We should take care of our bodies, nurture our souls, sharpen our minds, do the best job we can do at whatever we do today, rest when we need it, care for the earth and each other.  Why?  Because we are fabulous!