Your emotional energy is sacred, and there’s nothing wrong with treating it that way. If connection is what you’re looking for, save your emotional energy for those who will cherish it and share their own. - Yung Pueblo from his book “Lighter”


12, 14, 17, 21



Look into language school. Now is a good time to start learning Chinese, Spanish or Arabic.


5-8



Birthday traditions: 1) Plant something every year. 2) Birthday interview on camera or voice recording.


5



Blessing for the Brokenhearted: Poem by Jan Richardson ___________ "There is no remedy for love but to love more." – Henry David Thoreau ________________________ ________________________ Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. __________Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew. ___________Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still, as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless.


20



If you can afford to send flowers when a baby is born or when someone dies, do so.


21



Never take friendships for granted. Show up. Reach out. Be there when they need you. Friends are gifts; tend to those relationships with love.


15, 20



Sex talk: “Forget about sex. Just play first.” Forget about making a move and just have fun. Dance, listen to music together, go somewhere exciting, look at something beautiful, read to each other, play sports, let yourself be seen and encourage them to do the same. Communicate in a hundred ways: talk/send texts/ post on social media, pass notes, whatever. “Sex isn’t the door to intimacy


15



Once or twice a year my parents would clean all the walls and baseboards in the house. Every time I smell Murphy’s Oil Soap I think of that. They mostly separated work around traditional gender roles but only insofar as that’s what they liked. Mom had no desire to work in the yard, Dad didn’t like to cook (until he got a bread machine for his retirement!) They often worked together on big tasks no matter inside or outside. Teamwork! And clean walls.


21



Sadness means you need love. (From another person, a pet, yourself.) Someone whose presence brings you comfort. May be dead, living, fictional, historical figure, religious (god, saints, Buddha, etc.) Live and in person is best though. Let someone love you how you need to be loved.


19, 21



“You belong in every room you enter.” - Shonda Rhymes


6-21



Start playing Jokers and Marbles. Get it on Amazon or Etsy.


9



Pour energy into what’s right with you and see what happens.


20, 21



Summer Olympics for neighborhood kids. Create events in all kinds of sports, games and skills. Mix it up so the littler ones and the less athletically inclined have something they can succeed at too.


8-12



Guard your health and fitness as if it were your most valuable possession. (It is.)


14, 17, 21



I promise I will never snoop. No matter how curious I am, I will not violate your privacy. But if I ever think you may be in danger I will break any promise and any law I have to in order to keep you safe.


10, 12, 14, 15



Chemistry is not the same thing as compatibility.


16, 19, 21



Don't say anything out loud that you wouldn't want repeated or overheard. Don't email / text, etc. anything that you wouldn't want forwarded.


11-15



If it makes you happy it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.


11, 14, 20



I don’t buy Mallomars. But Santa does. Another Christmas stocking tradition is chicken flickin. Rubber chickens you shoot like rubber bands.


5, 21



Keep screen time to a minimum.


2-8



I would rather deal with a big truth than a little lie. Whatever it is you’re going through we can solve it together but only if we’re both honest.


14



“What do you think about keeping things PG-rated for a while? We’re both just figuring stuff out. The last thing I’d want to do is hurt you.” Or whatever spin you want to put on the idea that there’s no rush, and plenty of amazing sensations to experience and explore, long before things go further than kissing. Hang out in that PG range as long as possible. And if you can’t talk with your partner about that then you probably shouldn’t be having sex anyway.


13, 14, 15, 16, 17



Talk to him about applying to Democracy Summer program started by Rep. J. Raskin.


18



What’s the Mark Twain quote about it’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t true.


13, 21



Hand out tulip bulbs (or some sort of bulbs) at my funeral and ask people to plant a few in their yard. But NOT daffodils. I hate daffodils. And lilies, hate ‘em.) So tulips then.


21



Practice road-rage roll playing. People are NUTS! It's hard to imagine how you'll react when someone gets aggressive with you. Let's practice staying calm when someone is shouting and in your face.


15-17



We struggle so much when we don’t know ourselves. Are you a thinker (creative, big picture) or a doer (meticulous, task-oriented.) Both are great by the way.


16, 21



Send thank you acknowledgemnt for gifts received


1-21



You think you’re smart now but just wait. Your brain is just getting warmed up. Feed it: books, travel, music, mushrooms.


14, 17, 21



A friend of mine lost her son in a horrible accident. She wrote “I don’t believe God caused this but I do believe he can redeem it.” That has stayed with me for years. God doesn’t cause suffering... He showers those who suffer with his grace.


18