Welcome February, my favorite month of the year!

So here I am a few minutes past midnight on February 1st sitting in the dark on the west coast of the United States. To be more specific, the Pacific Northwest. In 2007, I successfully completed the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing a novel in a month. Now that was in November of 2007 so I had 30 days to piece together 50,000 words into something that at least made sense to me. But this is a whole different story (sorry for the pun)!

I picked the shortest month of the year, that way I expend the least amount of energy. The challenge here is simply to get up every morning and write something, anything, about anything. No pressure, just that waking up concept thing. Thinking to myself... I could do this. Heck, I usually wake up at least once a day as it is. Piece of cake.

I started this writing at exactly 5 minutes past midnight. That's fairly early for me. For some it's late. But I find myself rather excited to try something new. Won't probably be up quite this early each morning in February, but I think the daily thing will work out.

Some background on why this is my favorite month. My sister was born in February. My daughter was born in February. I was born in February. Some very famous people were born in February, I mean besides the three previously mentioned. It is kind of the middle of winter. That means snow, which is my favorite form of precipitation. Last, but not least, it contains Valentines Day. Yes, I know a greeting card invented holiday, but it is also when I pledged the rest of my life to the person I love. Perhaps a tad mushy, but straight up, fact. Favorite month? Oh yea!

Oh, back to NaBloPoMo, the theme for February is "WANT". They give you the option to write on the theme or whatever. All this freedom is definitely an issue. I could dribble on about random thoughts or I could laser in on the topic. Nice! I could do anything I WANT!

I think the basic question is "How do you really know what you want?". Is it a list of one hundred things or three or just one? Could it be a set of things too long for a list? Is what you want real, tangible, something you can touch or do? Is what you want imaginary, a concept, a feeling, a thought or a sense of being?

Maybe by just asking the question, "What do I want?", changes what you want. What if you didn't think about what you want and just moved through life giving to others. Would you be getting what you want. Maybe. You just might, if you understood what WANT meant to you.

Then there is the whole concept of want versus need. You need the basics. Shelter and food are needs. Aren't they also wants? Or how about, if you always want more, have you ever gotten what you want? Are you ever satisfied with what you have? Does that mean that you don't want any more?

Wow, I thought February's theme would be easy. Only 28 days of writing about "WANT". A simple, single word concept. What could be easier? Oh crap, this may be more complex then I first thought. I'm going back to bed and perhaps wake up again later to restart this effort. OR, depending on what I want, I just may stay in bed and wait until Punxsutawney Phil decides what he wants to do about winter.

Really, February was my favorite month, no really!

Enjoy!