New Year's Resolutions

I’ve always been against making New Year’s resolutions. That seems like a fairly innocuous to have a negative stance on, but it’s true. My philosophy on New Year’s resolutions has kind of been, why should I need a number on a calendar to inspire me to make decisions for bettering myself? Shouldn’t it be something with more depth, like my family or my husband or my own well-being that inspires self-improvement? I always felt like New Year’s resolutions were made to be broken and if you just made “life resolutions” instead, with real motivation behind them, you were more likely to keep them.

Well, this year, I realized I was kind of wrong. (I’m a lawyer, that’s the closest you’ll get to me admitting I’m incorrect about something.) The holidays hit, which was wonderful, I took time off of work, got out of the city, even left the internet behind for the most part. I obviously still checked facebook and people.com, let’s not get crazy here, but mostly, I gave myself a much-needed break from being constantly overstimulated. I spent some serious quality time with family, the hubs and old friends. I had no-holds-barred, uncomplicated fun. I recharged my batteries. Most of all, I had time to think, not worry or stress, but think.

It was exactly what I needed and guess what? It happened right at the New Year. It makes sense to me now that the time that people make resolutions for themselves is right after the time that they get to take a break from all the crazy of daily life. Also, being with those most important to you does a great job of putting things in perspective. It also makes sense that the most common of New Year’s resolutions, to lose weight, comes on the heels of the holidays. I had a similar realization during all this self-reflection and time off. Not to lose weight so much as to be healthier. After having a ready supply of candy and baked goods at hand for a few weeks, not to mention many a happy hour and rich meal, I felt like I needed to cleanse myself. Since drinking nothing but water, lemon juice and cayenne pepper has never been my style, I decided to do it a little bit more realistically. Eating more vegetables, looking for new and interesting ways to cook them so life didn’t feel like a salad, cutting out as much sugar and rich dairy as possible and trying to exercise almost every day has made me feel great, look better and ultimately, it’s actually been somewhat enjoyable too. I’ve always loved to cook and be creative in the kitchen and it’s led me to the discovery of some new favorite meals that include some great healthy ingredients. I’ll share one with you all right now. My new favorite dessert is a Chocolate-Peanut Butter-Banana Milkshake, but healthy. Yes, I’m serious. I put a teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa, a heaping teaspoon of reduced fat peanut butter, a cut up banana and about a cup of almond milk in a blender and I kid you not, it tastes ah-mazing. I’m not a “healthfood” person in that I don’t usually fall for healthy substitutes for delicious things, but no joke, this is a treat that’s delicious all on its own. I highly recommend it.

My other resolution, which seems weird for someone with a blog, is to spend less time on the internet. Of course, I will still blog, especially because it’s wonderful to write like this and I'll still occasionally tumbl and I can’t keep myself from checking facebook, but especially when I’m at home, I don’t want to be spending my relaxation time looking at a screen. It’s much better for me to have some no screen time occasionally. To put away the many electronic devices for a bit, turn off the TV, put on some music or even enjoy some silence and read or write in a notebook. I’m learning the value of quiet, which is such a turn around for me because I’m not a quiet person and I’ve been known to have music playing, while the TV’s on, while doing something on the computer. But now, I just need some quiet time in my day.

So I guess I’m a convert to New Year’s resolutions. I had time to focus on what’s important and I hope that making a few small changes will help me with that even more. I hope you all had wonderful holidays, that you all had time to reflect and get excited for the coming year and I am looking forward to getting back on the blog!

Grown-Up Lessons: Losing Touch

Throughout my years in this world, I've lost a lot of things: money, jewelry, coats/jackets, countless gloves and socks, occasionally my dignity and most unfortunately, friends.

As I've moved along my twisty life path, there are friends I've gained and lost along the way and some that will be there forever, no matter where I go. I don't want to sound callous about this because it still makes me incredibly sad, but the reality of growing up is that life happens and along the way, you lose track of people and they lose track of you. This doesn't mean you stop caring about these people; it doesn't mean that there are any hard feelings; and it certainly doesn't mean that the door is permanently closed on that relationship. Long-distance friendships are hard and I'm thrilled and grateful that I can maintain the relationships that I do manage to hold on to, especially my 5 college roommates, who I'm pretty confident will forever be a part of my life.

I am one hundred percent a culprit of losing touch as much as anybody, but I have legitimate reasons for it, just as many others do. My husband and I were long distance for a large part of our relationship and unfortunately, some of the time I might have spent on friendships I spent keeping phone dates and traveling across the country for visits. That's probably the largest reason I've lost touch with some friends, but there were others. I lost touch with a few good friends during my senior year of college because we kind of starting hanging out with different groups. Although I had no ill will toward my friends,  I wasn't particularly fond of the people with whom they spent most of their time. Also, I had begun seriously dating my now-husband around the same time, so I was spending a lot more time with his friends and our friends from our abroad program. Again, it wasn't any inciting incident. There was no big falling out. We just grew apart. This was something that used to bother me a great deal, and I used to feel an incredible amount of guilt about my part in this separation. What I've realized, however, is that firstly, it takes two to grow apart in these situations and secondly, that it was actually a pretty natural progression because of the courses our lives took.

On Being Sick or as I think of it, The End of the WORLD

Me. RIGHT NOW.

When I was little, being sick wasn't so bad. I got to stay home from school, watch soaps and The Princess Bride (ok, that didn't start until I was like 8 or so because I was afraid of the Rodents of Unusual Size and the Six-Fingered Man until then), eat chicken soup, basically get a free lazy day. My mom would make me a special sick bed on the sofa that I got to feel cozy and snuggly on all day. Aside from the achy feverish feeling, it was kind of awesome. In high school, sick days got even better because by that point I had discovered the BBC's 6-hour Pride and Prejudice mini-series and I watched all 6-hours in their empire-waisted, British-accented, Colin Firth-filled entirety every time. I miss those days.

I also remember when I was younger whenever my dad was sick. My mom would always say, "When your dad's sick, no one else in the world is sicker (more sick?) than him." Well, thanks a lot Dad, because now that's me.

I used to be a trooper when I was sick. I would slurp my chicken soup and quietly watch TV without complaint. I would try to go to school the next day even if I still felt somewhat bad. Well now that I'm an adult, that is OVER.

I am no longer any form of trooper. I hate troopers. In fact, when I'm sick, I hate everything. No one feels as bad as me right now and I hate everyone and everything because of that. I'm like 15% sure I'm dying even though all I have is a low-grade fever and what appears to be some sort of cold, but whatever, it's SERIOUS.

The turning point was when I went to college and suddenly I kind of had to fend for myself when I was sick. I would feel sick, walk into the living room of my apartment and go, "Where's MY SOFA SICK BED?!?" I would walk into my kitchen and go, "Where's my CHICKEN SOUP!?" I'd look at my planner and realize I had a mandatory class to attend and go, "Where's my SICK NOTE?!" Oh right, you need a mom for that. I had a mom, but not with me in post-high school land (ok, so my parents lived 10 minutes from my college campus, but I didn't live at home anymore and who knows what she was up to when her life didn't have to revolve around me and my sick needs anymore!). And sick notes don't work on college professors. And the chicken soup from the dining hall tasted like booboo.

NOT the dining hall's chicken soup.

Then law school came. I lived in Chicago in a small apartment with my cat. Well, my cat was useless when I was sick. Even crappy chicken noodle soup wasn't a 10-step walk away. And so my self-pity during illness continued to snowball out of control.

Now we come to present time where I live in Adult Land. I have a job. I can't just take sick days especially because I'm saving my leave time for holidays, so I have to go to work. I have to wake up at 5:45 in the morning with a fever and mucus pouring out of my face and go to work and get everyone else sick. Suck it coworkers! I have to try and look presentable which is really hard when your face is running. Yeah, my face. Not just my nose because I'm sicker than EVERYONE.

Now I have a husband, so you'd think, awesome! Someone to pity me and take care of me! (He's back in town by the way, yay!) But no. He's a med student. Not that he isn't helpful to a reasonable degree, but he is every bit aware of just how sick I am, which does not match how sick I am in my head, 15% chance of dying. He just tells me drink a lot of water and eat Coldeeze which have a weird aftertaste and I hate them. The problem is, it's not him at all. He's actually great and perfect for a normal sick person. But I am not. I am a sick MONSTER. I don't even know what I want him to do. I just want him to pull an I Dream of Jeannie and do the crossed-arm, head-bob, winky thing and make me better. (Plus, seeing him do that would be priceless.) If I could go home now and have a sick day high school style, I'd probably still be a nightmare because I'm at the point now where my self-pity knows no bounds. Now go away. I hate you. I hate everything. I need Kleenex.

My Teenage She-roes

I have two amazing 17-year-old women in my life. One is my sister-in-law, Lizzie and the other is a young lady that I tutor in English, Kelsey. These girls give me faith in the younger generation because they are smart, down-to-earth, confident and amazingly drama-free for teenage girls. They are a step ahead of their peers for sure. Of course they have emotions and worries and problems like everyone else, but it's in the way they deal with those problems and don't let them affect their personalities or relationships that make them so wonderful.

First my sister-in-law Lizzie. She's seriously one of the coolest people I know and by cool I mean, truly cool without even trying. First of all, and this is by no means the most important thing about her, she is a great dresser. She wears clothes that are relaxed, fashion-forward and age appropriate all at the same time. Her awesome dressing ability, however, is a reflection of her great personality. She is also astoundingly busy for someone her age between school, sports, volunteering and other extracurriculars, but it seems like she still always invests a lot of effort into the people she cares about, her family and friends. She's got her priorities straight at 17, a feat that I still struggle with at 27. Of course she's still learning about herself and her place in the world, but I feel like I can learn a lot from her too. Oh, and she's gorgeous and tall, so she's pretty much the total package. I'm stoked that my children will share genes with her and look to her as a role model because she already makes a good one.

Danny and I with my siblings-in-law. Seriously, how cute is she?

Kelsey is another young woman from whom I've learned a great deal. Honestly, if she and Lizzie knew each other, I'm pretty sure they'd be friends because they share many similar qualities. I began tutoring Kelsey last year before I got my current job and needed some extra money. Now that I have a full-time position, tutoring isn't really essential financially, but I have no intention of giving it up because I genuinely look forward to my time with Kelsey. I love working with her because she genuinely likes learning. She's also outgoing and fun and enthusiastic, but my favorite thing about her is her curiosity and hunger to learn. I love talking with her about her assigned books from English and seeing her think of something in a different way or suddenly realizing a new point that she hadn't before. Honestly, I also think my working with her has indirectly led to my writing on this blog. She's helped me rediscover my love of expressing my thoughts in writing because I've been helping her do just that for the past year and watching as she genuinely grows to enjoy it as well.

Basically these two young ladies have been inspirations to me and no doubt to the other people around them. These girls are going to do great things, and in fact, I think they already have, just by being themselves. Thank goodness for these girls and others like them, because the world can use every amazing woman it can get.

In Appreciation of Marriage

That handsome man you see above is my husband, watching me walk down the aisle to begin our life together. We've been married just over a year now and it has been the best, most challenging, most rewarding and most surprising adventure of my life. I find myself reflecting on how much I enjoy marriage to Danny especially lately because he has to be away from me for two away rotations. 1 week down, 7 to go. With him gone, I am living the life of a pseudo-single girl again and I can't say I enjoy the change. It feels like a crucial part of my support system is gone, even though I get to talk to him every day. It's like when you hang a big poster on the wall and you only put a small amount of tape in the four corners and it's all billowy and not really stuck to the wall and then you realize "Oh! I should put some tape right in the middle!" Well I feel like I'm missing my middle piece of tape. I'm still stuck to the wall, I'm just not stuck to it all that well. Does that make sense? If not, try hanging a big poster and you'll get what I mean.

The thing is, although it wasn't 100% jelly beans and rainbows the entire time (because nothing worth doing is, even though jelly beans are delicious), Danny and I have become a team during our first year of marriage. We tackle things together and we can trust each other to hold one another up when we find ourselves struggling. That's not to say we weren't there for each other before but there's a gravity to our support for each other that wasn't there before we got married. Now I'm all about being an independent lady and girls are just as good if not better than boys and all that awesome girl-power empowerment. But here's where you're going to get a slightly hot button opinion from me for the first time. Anyone who is in a relationship and doesn't want to get married (which is a totally fine and valid life choice) that says "It's not like anything is going to change, it's just a piece of paper!" Well, they're wrong. Because even though Danny and I were the same people we'd always been, things changed the day we got married and I'm not just talking about giving up closet space. When you stand up in front of everyone you know or even just a justice of the peace and make solemn promises to each other and become husband and wife, there's a shift in your reality. You become part of a "we" in way that you were not before. As a direct result of this shift, marriage has changed me for the better. I'd like to think I'm less self-centered now because when I think about big decisions or even small ones, I think about them now in terms of "how will this affect US?" rather than "how will this affect ME?" Being married has also given me a sense of calm and security that I never had before even though I knew Danny loved me and was committed to me. It's not just a security in being loved, it's a security in having someone next to you on your life's path.

I don't mean to make you gag, and I know that this is a lot of "us" and "we" talk for an only child, but that's what marriage has changed for me. I hope it continues to do this because honestly, I love it. I love that when I'm looking through our DVR trying to decide what to watch I save the new episode of The Office to watch with him. See how selfless I've become? It's crazytown. So thank you marriage (and Danny) for making this only child a team player. I promise I'll be back to talking about myself tomorrow. And just to lighten up this mushy love talk:

Doesn't Ron look almost as content as Danny above? I think so. And I'm very happy that the sight of me walking down the aisle made Danny as happy as a bacon-wrapped turkey leg made Ron. That's seriously high flattery folks.