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And so a new decade begins.  I think my funk yesterday was useful – it made me think about my life, what I’m happy with, and what I would like to change.  Good things to be thinking about when you hit one of those milestone moments in your life.  Reflecting on how much my life has changed for the better in the last ten years helped to lift me out of the funk a little, and I started a list of what I want to do with the next year and ten years of my life.

First, in the future, I am going to plan on taking at least a week off of work during December each year.  Not all at once – just individual days here and there to give me the time to do the things I love to do during the holidays without trying to crowd them all into the already busy weekends.  I think that will reduce the holiday stress and bring my enjoyment of the holidays back to where it was ten years ago.

Second, I am going to try to forget the paperwork that is sitting in China and just try to enjoy my family as it is now.  I’ve been able to do that for the most part – but every now and again I need a reminder.

Third, I am going to try to explicitly tell people things more rather than either assuming that they can read my mind.  This is probably the hardest of my resolutions because I tend to keep things internalized a lot.  And I know I do that out of fear – fear of rejection, fear of indifference, fear of ridicule.  But the truth of the matter is that silence does not foster relationships – it kills them slowly.   And because I am afraid of saying things out loud –good or bad, my relationships with friends and family are at risk of withering on the vine.  I cannot be afraid to tell people I love them.  And the fact that I’m sitting here crying as I write this tells me that this will be both difficult and necessary.   I know that I am better at this than I was ten years ago – but it is a struggle that I must continue.

And on that cheery note, I will conclude.  Happy birthday to me!

In a funk

For some reason, I've been in a funk all morning long.  It could have something to do with the fact that today is the last day of my thirties - but I don't think so.  When I think back and compare my life now with my life ten years ago, I know that so many things are incredibly better now than they were then.

Then,  I was living in tiny apartment in a big city that had lost its glamour for me - alone and away from my family.  Now, I'm living in a house with a yard in the city of my youth, near all my family and many old and new friends. 

Then, I was in a high pressure, highly paid job that was challenging intellectually but that took all of my time and I felt unsatisfied because I was helping rich people do things I didn't really agree with.  Now, I am in a medium pressure, medium paid job that is challenging intellectually but that leaves me some free time and enables me to believe that I am actually doing good things that help the community as a whole.

Then, I had just come out of a destructive relationship with a major jerk.  Now, I'm in a happy marriage with Mr. Fabulous and have the most amazing daughter anyone could ever ask for.

No - I think my funk has more to do with the holiday season.  That is one thing that has not gotten better over the years.  Back when I was thirty and single, the holidays were very low stress.  I flew home and spent Thanksgiving and my birthday with my family.  Mom cooked nonstop and I partied like it was 1999.  For Christmas, I went to one party (my office party).  I didn't send Christmas cards.  I always took a week vacation, flew home, and spent one madcap day at the mall with my nice annual bonus.  The Christmas traditions were long established and unquestioned and comfortable.

Now - the whole season has changed.  All of the good things in my life have conspired to create chaos.  The holidays have to be doled out and rationed between in-laws and my family.  Old traditions have to be rethought and renegotiated each year.  I have new and old friends - and as a result have three Christmas parties to go to (including Mr. Fabulous's office party but not including my office party which, thankfully, is during working hours).  Everyone wants to know about the little one, so Christmas cards are a priority.  (Not that I've managed to get them out each year - or even most years.  But it's on the radar screen and a stress factor.)   This year my birthday is nowhere near Thanksgiving, so it feels a little bit lost in all the rush.  There's no time to do a party - we're just going out for dinner.  Which was at my request, but still feels a little anticlimactic.  And finally, because I'm in the early stages of the new job, I'm accumulating vacation at a glacial pace.  What's more, I'm not taking the vacation that I have accrued because I'm saving it for maternity leave for the time that the CCAA finally gets to our LID and we are able to adopt again.  Of course, at the rate the CCAA has been making matches lately, I'm starting to think that day may never come. 

I know it sounds like I'm complaining - and maybe I am a little - but I do know that everything stressful about the holiday season is either (A) because of other things in my life that are wonderful and that I wouldn't give up for the world or (B) due to things in my life that are changing and that will change in the future and give me a little breathing room.    But the fact remains that I am in a funk this morning.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

I am unobservant

I have decided I must be one of the most unobservant people in the world.  This should not come as a huge surprise to anyone who knows me.  I have perpetual tunnel vision - I get caught up in the “zone” of whatever I am doing and the rest of the world could come crashing down around me and I wouldn’t notice.  Because of this I am afraid to read a book to myself while my daughter is awake.  I fear that while I am lost in my book, she will find something in the house that wasn’t completely child proofed and kill herself.
 
You should know that there is a precedent in my life that justifies this fear.  When I was about two years old my mother left me in the charge of my diabetic father and my 13-year old cousin.  When she came back a while later, I was in the fireplace getting soot and ashes all over the place while my father was unconscious in the kitchen after having an insulin reaction.  And my cousin?  She was reading the whole time and hadn’t noticed a thing.

So today, I noticed for the first time that the leaves on the tree outside of my office window had turned yellow.  Not just some of the leaves and not just a little yellow-ish.  All of them.  Completely yellow.  And I never noticed that they were starting to turn even though I have only been in this office a couple of months and even though each day I gaze out the window and sigh with happiness about the fact that I finally have a window office. 

Sigh. 

Planning = GOOD

So, yesterday was one of those delightful government holidays that mean I get the day off of work even though there are none of the expectations that come with a real “holiday.”  I love those days.  I get a day to bum around and hang out with the Cutest Thing and it’s generally pretty fun.  Yesterday, however, was less fun than normal because of my lack of planning.  Sigh. 
I had envisioned a mommy –daughter day starting with a haircut for the C.T. at the local kiddie salon, followed by a field trip to the local toy emporium to wander about and start to make a wishlist for Christmas, then some time wandering through the mall to look at the (really much to early, but I’m starting to get used to it) holiday decorations and a nice lunch.  All of this was to be accomplished in time to go home for the normal nap time so as to cause the least interference possible with her normal schedule.

All would have been fine, except for the fact that I neglected to make an appointment at the kiddie salon near the mall.  I’ve never had a problem with just dropping into the one by our house, so I figured it shouldn’t be a problem, right?  WRONG!  First of all, after driving a half an hour to get to the mall, I spent another half an hour tooling around the surrounding area trying the find the [expletive deleted] salon because I had never been there before and the streets around the mall are so twisty and messed up that just having an address isn’t enough.  Plus which, it was about a mile down the road and on the other side of the freeway from where the mapping website said it was.  Further, even though I tried calling four times as I was driving around, nobody answered the phone and the voice mail message did not give directions.
 
Then, once we finally found the place, it turns out they were booked solid all day long.  They kindly asked if they could call some of the other locations to get me in, and without thinking, I said sure – I’d be able to go to the one right by my house.  Lo and behold, that one can get us in right away.  So, we jump back into the car and drive the half hour back to our neighborhood.  Needless to say, by this time the C.T. is getting a bit antsy and tired of being in the car.  I promise her candy after the haircut, which stems the tide of the impending toddler tantrum a little.  Of course, while we are driving there it occurs to me that it would have been smarter to ask for an after-nap appointment so we could do the rest of our mall-centered bonding that morning.  But it was too late for second thoughts, so I drove on.
 
Fortunately, after that, the day went smoothly.  The haircut turned out well.  The promised lollipop was a hit, and the rest of the (shortened) mall bonding morning went well.  Of course, we could have skipped the trip to the toy store because there were absolutely no surprises about which toys she gravitated toward.  Anything with princesses, ponies, or anything that was pink or purple.  Sigh.  The “p” years are upon us with a vengeance.

So, today I am back at work.  I’m sure there could be some great philosophical lesson beyond proper planning for yesterday, but my brain hurts from thinking about how much gas I must have burned driving back and forth, and so I can’t think of it now.  Maybe tomorrow.

Peer pressure - good, bad or indifferent

OK, I want to start by acknowledging that yesterday's phone call from Mr. Fabulous probably wasn't as funny as I thought it was when it happened. I thought about deleting the entry, but realized that if I second guess every entry after I post it, this blog will go nowhere. So, there you go. No do-overs.

On to today's thoughts. I've been thinking about peer pressure - usually thought to be bad, but is it always? I don't think so. My three year old daughter, the Cutest Thing in the whole world, in my (unbiased) opinion, LOVES dresses. To the point of throwing fits if she is forced by below-freezing temperatures to wear jeans. I believe this stems, at least in part from the fact that everyone says "Oh, what a cute dress" every time she wears one.

In the fit-throwing moments, I get frustrated and want to say “it doesn’t matter if your clothes are cute – they just need to be warm.”  This whole caring what other people think was so foreign to me when I was young.  In fact, I used to be proud of the fact that I didn’t care about what people thought.  However, to be honest, it is probably truer to say that I didn’t notice what people thought.  I lived in a little mental bubble of my own creation and took no notice of what was going on around me.  As you would expect, I was a very odd child.

However, at some point in my life, I realized that caring – that noticing – what people think about you is the basis for the social skills that you need to be a functioning part of society.  I still struggle with many of the social niceties that seem to come so naturally to others.  I guess I’m grateful that Miss C.T. will probably not have the same difficulties “fitting in” that I had growing up.  Of course, she will have different difficulties that I will have to try to help her to navigate.  I imagine the use of the phrase "if all of your friends jumped off of a cliff . . ." is to be expected on several occasions in the future.  But, in the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep a look-out for cute, warm, winter dresses.

True story

Scene: random government office.

[cell phone rings]
[Meg looks at caller ID - it's her beloved spouse, Mr. Fabulous]

Meg: Hello?
Mr. Fabulous: Sorry, wrong number!
Meg: Huh???

------

I understand he dialed my number by mistake - but it sure threw me for a loop for a second!

Imperfection

I just got back from the doctor, who confirmed that I am experiencing the beginnings of hearing loss. Not enough to justify doing anything about it right now - but enough to explain my difficulties understanding people at restaurants and parties and enough to warrant a follow up exam next year.

I tell you, sometimes I feel like my body is just falling apart. I've worn glasses since I was 2, My feet and joints are becoming stiffer and stiffer each morning, and now this. Now I'm going to actually have to start taking care of my body, Grrr!

On the plus side, this seems like the perfect subject for the inaugural post on this blog - which will chronicle the minutiae of my day to day life with belly-gazing reflections on my imperfect life to date and contemplation (and celebration) of where to go from here.

So, welcome!

Meg