A Mess of a Goal

I have had many hobbies over the past <mumble> years... juggling, origami making, scrapbooking, blogging, ukelele playing, Zentangle-ing... and I have really enjoyed all of them. I get interested in something, try it out, and get quite invested in it. I pour my energy into it and sometimes I get pretty decent results. Not expert, not by a long shot, but decently decent.

Then the interest fades and I leave that particular hobby behind.

Well, okay, except for blogging -- I've been keeping up with this little scrap of internet since January 1, 2002, first with the late lamented Diary-X, then with Typepad. Red Nose has languished every now and again, with the posts few and far between, but it's always popped back up. I'm happy about that.

But the others...

So! One of my goals for 2016 is to resurrect a few of these long-lost labors of love.

I'm starting with juggling. I have a very specific goal for the year: learn a juggling pattern called Mills Mess. It's tricky. When I last was juggling regularly, I almost -- but not quite -- got it. This time I will get it, but I have to start (again) with the basics. I haven't lost the skill entirely; muscle memory is like that. But it's no longer effortless. Therefore, I begin at the beginning, slowly recovering the little bit of skill that I once had, and then I'll move on to learn the new pattern.

Seems like a low bar -- one new pattern in a whole year -- but I know me, and this is actually a pretty realistic goal.

Then the challenge is not to let it all slip away.