The Year in Review

Belated Merry Christmas, dear readers. Apologies for not sending you well wishes closer to the holiday but Christmas Eve found me preparing to host a large group of people for the traditional Italian Night of Seven Fishes, then winding up in the emergency room with my dear chef, H, who had a back spasm, obviously related to his repeatedly heaving a whole, raw, octopus in and out of the refrigerator to show anyone who walked into our house. Christmas Day I was drowning in wrapping paper and Geotrax parts, and began my week-long soak in champagne, which, sadly, will come to an end tomorrow night, New Year's Eve.

As I have written about before, the new year is a time when we all examine our flaws in the cold light of a hangover, crippled by the depressive effects of last night's alcohol, stuffed with last night's dessert binge, sure we are the laziest, fattest, lowest achieving person on the planet. I have the added benefit of a little practice session of self-examination every December the twenty-seventh, my birthday.*

Just like last year, and every year since I have had kids (since, you don't really get the true significance of birthdays until you are on the birth-giving end of one), I planned a lovely day for myself**, starting it off with a 10K. TOOOOT!! Yes, that's the sound of my own horn and, no, I don't care, because if you can't do it on your own birthday when can you? Also, doing it in 58 minutes made my thirty-sixth birthday much easier to swallow since I had hard evidence that I am not, as of yet, falling apart at the seams.

Planning my day was aided mightily by the presence of my father and stepmother, who not only watched the kids so H and I could go to Hoboken for a romantic dinner at the restaurant we once lived above many moons ago, but they also surprised us with a couples massage at a local spa that afternoon. It came with a pre-massage whirlpool for two, which sounded awesome to H and made me a little nauseous frankly, since as anticipated, I spent the entire time in the couples waiting area eyeballing the other clients deciding who was most/least likely to fool around in the tub, then, despite this being a top-notch spa, wondered who had been in our tub the hour before, regretting there was not a strong smell of bleach in the room to allay my fears of contracting an STD. It was even better than I anticipated, when ten minutes into our soak, the woman in the room next door began screaming like a banshee, and not in that way. Her husband, it seems was having a seizure and she had to suspend him out of the water to prevent his drowning and was unable to unlock the door to the suite. Cue spa staff, police and EMT's pounding on doors, including ours at first. Calgon take me away.

The massage itself did prove to be quite relaxing, after I managed to convince massage virgin, H, that his going boxer-less did not seem skeevy to the masseuse, and during it I had time to do my traditional Birthday Year in Review. And while it seems every year I have the same grand plans to have this year be the year I stop sticking my face in a plate of dessert every Saturday night as a way of rewarding myself for eating well and exercising during the week (see Mean Mommy antonym: moderation) and also be the year I finally start working on my book (which is suspiciously beginning to have the ring of "I coulda been a contender!"), I found I was, on the whole, content with my life. And I realized, I pretty much am each year. Does that mean there's something wrong with me?

If you look at magazine covers and see television commercials, it seems everyone in the United States has some grand, life-changing goals they are not realizing. In fact, last month, the lead article of O magazine (again, I confess to reading it since her staff writers are brilliant, I jsut wish her stupid, mug wasn't on the cover each month), was, "Who Are You Meant to Be? A step-by-step guide to finding and fulfilling your life's purpose". The article even included a quiz to determine what it is that you are meant to do with your life and featured pieces written by famous female designers, writers and politicians. And I sat there feeling like a simpleton because, I'm not looking to become anything else. Sounds bad, huh?

A lot of people in my position, and admittedly, myself at times, would see this stage in my life as a weigh station, just a place I'm stuck in until I can move on with my real life. In fact, if you search this blog you will find a few posts dedicated just to that subject. But I have begun to realize that my insecurities about what I am doing with my life stem from what I think others think about me and that is a gourmet recipe for misery. Now I'm not about to turn into one of those mothers who turn being a stay at home mom in to a calling of the highest degree. I don't think I'm reinventing the wheel here, but what if I just inhabited my life instead of wondering "what's it all about?".

Perhaps this post sounds defeatist, or like I'm giving up on my writing plans or any vision of my own future, but that us not the case at all. I will take opportunities where I can find them, like finding the wonderful S to watch the kids and signing up for a writing workshop, but constantly striving and searching is exhausting, and, honestly, I have enough in my life to exhaust me already. I just think searching for the perfect life is preventing me from enjoying my near-perfect one at times.

So I will make my low-expectation/high rate of success resolutions, as I do every year - although last year's calcium supplement plan did not stick - and see what this year holds for me without stressing about whether I am the Mary I was meant to be. Because as the phrase suggests, if I am meant to be her, then it will happen because she's already there inside. She just needs more sleep and a few more hours to write.

*Despite what my Facebook profile says. When I signed up for this mysterious service back in its nascence, I was afraid of being hacked and changed my birth info by one digit.

**And H narrowly escaped The Great Cake Fight Part Deux by bringing home gourmet cupcakes.