When I was a child I wanted to be an actress and a rock star and a National Geographic photographer. I’m convinced I could’ve been all three and possibly more if I had created the intention and committed the time to learning how to act, sing and take pictures, etc. Experience has taught me there’s no other way.

I will never abandon those dreams, I’m just putting then aside until life presents the perfect opportunity to breakout and make em’ weep with my talent. Until then, I have promised myself and God that I will accomplish a few smaller but equally important goals in 2012 that hopefully will put me in a position to be of service to myself and others.

I call these three things my 2012 BUCKET LIST. (Resolutions are soooo 20th Century.)

1. Learn to play the guitar: In addition to being fun, studies have shown that learning to play an instrument makes you smarter, it sharpens the mind and helps to improve memory. The bonus is once you get good enough to actually create and perform, you move into the realm of inspiring people through your art. I can’t think of anything more satisfying to this 30-something wanna be rock-star.

2. Become a Mistress of the Dance: Bellydance, that is. Years ago before the pressure of work, mommyhood and life in general forced me to re-evaluate my priorities, I spent 3 hours every Saturday afternoon shaking and shimmying with a group of beautiful women at a local bellydance studio. Not only did I lose a ton of weight, I felt sexy, feminine and POWERFUL. I miss that feeling and I know I’m not alone. So many of us have succumb to the pressure of society and our misguided sistren who have convinced us that “manning up and growing a pair” makes us better women. As a result we’ve become completely disconnected from our true feminine essence . My goal this year is to use bellydance along with yoga to balance my yin and yang, and hopefully get to the point where I can teach other women how to do the same.

3. Learn to speak French. Nevermind I studied French from 3rd grade through college and can only remember 10 words, this year I intended to learn at least 100 more! Rosetta Stone said anyone can learn a language and I’m out to prove them right. Hopefully my soon to be discovered late life aptitude for language will come in handy when I begin work on my forthcoming travel show, which if all goes as planned, will inspire other women of color to travel beyond the familiar into the vast expanse of life, love and understanding (For more on this, See bucket list 2013.)

Of course these things join the perennial list of goals like: honor myself, respect others, exude love, be of service, launch a multi-billion dollar media company……and so on. 🙂

Yup, that’s what I’ll be working on this year…..So, what’s on your 2012 bucket list?