Day 1 - 6.14.10

I first came up with the idea of the Last Year Project 3 days ago. I decided to start today. There is no special reason to start today. Although today is my mother's birthday, I just decided to start today because I didn't want to wait 4 months until my birthday or 6 months until the end of the year. If I had 365 days to live, I would start living right away. And so it has begun.

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I went to bed last night with a bit of a dilemma. Right now I am typing from a flight back to Los Angeles, but I spent the past weekend in New York. I went for a law school reunion and was catching up with family and old friends from law school and beyond. I had brunch with one dear friend, Corinne, on Saturday. She was very, very pregnant. In fact, she was having contractions during our brunch. As we were saying our goodbyes I made her promise to let me know the second the baby was born. I promised that if I were in town (the baby had until Monday), I would come and meet the newest member of her family.

That night I had a raucous (for me) night at my reunion. I drank lots of wine and felt a little less than stellar on Sunday. I had breakfast with one friend though and lunch with a group of others. All day long I dragged my suitcase and heavy briefcase with me. Later in the afternoon I took a slow train deep into Long Island to my cousin's house where I planned to stay until they drove me to the airport on Monday afternoon.

As I was on this slow train to Long Island (and finally a bit of rest) I received an e-mail... the baby was here. I was thrilled for my friend, but the thought of taking the train all the way back into the city made me feel very sick. I was not thrilled about having to do that. I sent them a reply saying I was on the way to Long Island, but would try to visit the next day.

So I went to bed seriously NOT wanting to have to make the trip, but decided I would sleep on it and make the decision the next morning. So this morning I woke up and realized it was Day 1 of the 365 Day Project. In keeping with my goals should I stay at my cousins or go back into Manhattan and visit my friend and her new baby? The answer was clear – I had to go and spend time with my dear friend on this momentous occasion in her life. So I packed up and got myself ready for the 1 ½ commute back into the city. I spent 2 hours with my friends, and then went to the airport.

I was very happy with my decision and really appreciated how easy the 365 Day Project made that decision for me.

The dear newborn