Be It Resolved That There Shall Be No Resolving
My mood over the holiday has been generally good, especially compared to past years. I overdid it a bit on baking and cooking (no surprise) and bought too many presents, but not AS MANY too many as usual. I managed to stop before I crippled myself. I've slept pretty well except Saturday night, naturally, because Eve wanted me to take her to the mall on Sunday. We still had fun, but getting ready to go I felt like death, and it's a good thing she's cute and funny.
I will probably do a couple of Christmas wrap-up posts, but it was pretty nearly perfect. Family, friends, no life-threatening weather to prevent travel, kids are great. I had one bad day where I felt like I should be doing more, but I sat down with a book and the feeling went away.
Today I woke up and, as usual, suddenly realized what the fact that it is New Year's Eve actually means, even though I knew it was coming and we're having people over and I haven't known what day it was since before Christmas but kept track of the date.
My self esteem isn't great right now. I tried doing the 'look at all my friends who are brilliant and accomplished and wonderful, and if they want to be friends with me I must be a not-garbage person', but sometimes all that does is make me dwell on why I'm not more brilliant and accomplished. I've worked hard to get to a place where I can work a little to provide structure and contribute a little to my kids' education, and do that small job well. I still think sometimes about what it must be like to have a big job with big responsibilities, to have the satisfaction of figuring out how to solve difficult problems, to have the admiration of your peers.
I often think randomly of people I knew in university and see if I can find them on social media or in the news. There was one woman doing her PhD when I was doing my masters - she was kind of pompous and arrogant and a little bit annoying. She's the freaking provost of a university a couple of hours away from me. Did I hope to find out that she was a failure living in a crack den? No, of course not. It's not the kind of job I would want anyway (not without being a whole different person) and being arrogant and officious probably helped her immensely and I'm sure she kicked ass.
Another girl who seemed effortlessly bewitching and mysterious (I heard her introduce herself to a guy as Josephine, but then her actual name was Sophie, and I don't know if they were doing a Napoleon thing or what, but it seemed movie-like and insanely cool.) She moved to my husband's home town to be a librarian affiliated with the university there, which could have been me in a different life, and she sounds humble and sweet in the article I found but she still wears black-framed glasses and a scarf and looks like she's from New York and what am I even DOING with my life? (I am not fishing for compliments here, just working through some stuff).
Anyway, this is a long way of typing out what has been darting through my brain in split second intervals. Someone just posted a meme that said "what if instead of resolution we did revolutions and you just like yourself exactly the way you fucking are" and yes, it's a bit trite, but also actually revolutionary?
It's fine. I'm fine. If I worked full time in some amazing job who would take my dad to the Retina Centre on a Tuesday? I guess I could just take a day off, shut up.
I'm going to look at it like it's good to have room for improvement. If I was perfect it would be boring, right? Some people find my failures really entertaining. Being a hot mess is really an act of service to the people in my life.
I am so lucky and privileged, and I am always grateful, even when I'm complaining. This year is going to be hard for so many people. I'm going to cling to the good. Play the piano more. Remember how to cook. Write more. Get to the stupid bank so I can send my own etransfers instead of having to ask my husband. Try to be a helper. Actually I may have a goal to just set some goals, because I don't want to set myself up for failure and feel worse, but also I have ADD and if I don't write down any goals I literally forget them until I'm lying away in bed at night.
Anyway. New Year. Hope there is some Happy.
Comments
happy new year to you, friend.
Pretty often, particularly when I am comparing myself to someone who has a whole THING I admire, I lean on the cliched-but-true "It takes all kinds to make a world" and "There's only one you." Like, I could call myself Josephine and wear black-framed glasses and a really jaunty scarf, but we already HAVE one of those; also, I couldn't really, because it wouldn't work, because that isn't me: I'm somebody else, and Josephine couldn't be me either, even if she really really wishes she could be.
I also think a lot about what I'd have to give up to be someone else. I could be X, but imagine how many hours I would have to spend doing that. Do I want to spend so many hours doing that? Hell no.
I also happen to know that she's terrible with money, regularly bounces checks, and has had all these jobs because she can't actually hold a job for longer than about two years before she gets bored and moves on. She has a reputation for flightiness and it's starting to impact her professional life. So, you can't always see things from the outside.
Also, I have to echo what everyone else says. I'm always SO EXCITED when I see a post from you. Some of that is because I want to see what Lucy's up to (WHERE'S LUCY?), but mostly it's because your voice is unique and hilarious and you bring joy to my life. And those people you knew in university? They mean nothing to me!
That is the sweetest ornament.
And I love your resolution to not make resolutions. Meta in the best possible way.
(A big part of me wants to gush on and on about how you ARE brilliant and accomplished, because you ARE, and also I did see the part where you said you are not fishing for compliments, and I also fully know the feeling of compliments sometimes having the reverse effect of making a person feel WORSE, which is not what I would want. This sentence is too long. I will just say that I adore your posts and wish I had been reading you long before I began and I love your honesty and humor and writing and your perspective on All Of This.)
(I have given up on resolutions because I always fail at the things I resolve to do and then I feel like crap and it feels pretty stupid setting myself up for failure/crap-feeling. Of course then I feel shitty for not even TRYING. It's a whole stupid cycle.)
I get comparing yourself to others, especially when it comes to career. I have so many friends in academia, which was my life plan, and it can really make me feel less-than sometimes.
Love the ornament
1. Eat more pancakes. As I had eaten probably 0 - 2 pancakes the year before, this was really easy. Thankfully, the year I made this resolution was 2020, and that was the perfect year for sweet comfort food. I think I had pancakes about 8 times that year, so I CRUSHED IT.
2. Floss my teeth. I finally got serious about it and who knew, it really helped when I got my teeth cleaned.
3. Yoga. Last year I decided to add daily yoga for the month of January, and I loved it and it stuck for the entire year. I'm pulling that one (and the flossing) into 2025.
It's complicated, right? If we want to improve ourselves, that can make us kind of hate ourselves and never find zen happiness. If we don't want to improve ourselves, we are slackers. Where's the answer? I'm not sure.
I will say that at my age, I'm working on accepting myself as I am. I don't want to be unhappy because I didn't get the same job as someone else, the same house as someone else, the same life as someone else. My life is deeply flawed and yet still beautiful and lovely. Hang in there.
Thanks for being here and writing! Happy New Year!