How does your last year look?

Last night I was having dinner with a friend and we were reflecting on our past year.  She mentioned that she wasn’t really in the holiday mood and was pretty much looking forward to 2012 being over.   She told me that she started off last year dating a new guy, moving into a new apartment and excited about her job.  But she is ending the year not dating anyone, frustrated at her noisy neighbors and overworked and underpaid at her job.   When you look at your life in such a way as that I guess she had a point.

Which led me to think about my past year…(if this were a sitcom I would insert some music and make the screen fuzzy to insinuate time travel)….

At this time last year I was starting a new job that WAY underpaid me (but it was a job so I took it!), living with my son at my parents’ house, driving a car that didn’t belong to me (thanks Mom and Dad!) and probably not dating anyone (Ok, sorry about  not know this last fact, but I truly don’t remember my relationship status, which leads me to believe no one of value was in my life at the time).

So here I am in a job that pays well (thank you holiday bonus!), driving a new car I pay for, living in a house I rent and still not dating anyone of mention… If you compare apples to apples, or oranges to oranges, or whatever the heck you want to compare my past year was pretty good!

But I digress… while discussing our success and/or failure of 2012 my friend and I came up with as Oprah would say an “AHA! Moment.”   Basically I think you can determine your attitude about yourself and your past year if you measure it against a goal.  Last year about this time my only goals were to pay my bills and not fight with my mom over turning lights on and off in the house – she is a consistent “Turn the lights off” person and I tend to be a “leave a light on for someone” person.  As you may imagine our lighting philosophies tended to lead to some royal battles.   So I started this year with reasonably attainable goals.  Once I started accomplishing these little goals I was able to really start enjoying my year; new job!  New friends! New travels! New dates! A few bad dates! (Ok, they get explanation points too because, let’s be real, my dating life is HILARIOUS at times) and on and on my list went with new things.

I decided last night that my goal in life (at this moment) is to be a good mom.  Really, simply, that is it.  I have a job that allows me to put my Little Man first.  I have friends who know my son is my priority and I only will date people who understand that as well.  Sure, my long term goals will be to retire wealthy, buy a beach house and travel to Europe.  Of course my professional goals are to get promoted, be recognized as a leader and contribute to our society.  However, for 2013 my one simple goal is to be a good mom and I am happy to say that I am 100% committed to the task. 

As for my friend?   I am not yet sure what her 2013 goals are but I may suggest finding a new place to live as her neighbors really are noisy!

Lists

Lists,

I like to make lists - lists of things to do, list of things to shop for, lists of bills to be paid.  Some may say I’m a bit too into lists, but hey! I have friends who make lists of their lists, so as long as I stick to one list per day I think I am ok.

This whole writing idea started with a list (that and a shower, but more about that later). I woke up one day (in the proverbialy sense, I think I was awake for a few hours) when a thought hit me.  Here I was, 33 days away from my 33^rd birthday and I really can’t tell you anything that was exciting or exceptional during my 32^nd year.  Sure, some years were monumental, like graduating college and getting my first apartment, first job and first real boyfriend – shout out to 2000!  Other years were memorable like the birth of my son, the death of a loved one, or a fun girls weekend away.  But I spent all of being 32 doing absolutely nothing.  Really – nothing.  I lost my job a month before 32, lost my house two months into 32, lost my car a few weeks after that, moved home with my parents, looked for work, had some consulting jobs, fought to get paid by said jobs, put money into a broken car, put money into my son’s past times, found more consulting jobs, one road trip to middle of nowhere Ohio, one quick race in the middle of nowhere Florida, a good tan, ten pounds lighter and here I sit… 33 days until I’m 33 and making a list as to how to hurry up and change my 32^nd year before I enter my 33^rd year.

I started my list thinking I would make 33 changes before I turned 33, but let’s be honest change is hard and if I didn’t do something for the last 32 years, why would I hurry up and do it in 33 days?  I surveyed friends and got suggestions like – run 33 miles, go on 33 dates, lose 33 pounds, try 33 new foods.  I thought about making small changes each day, so on day 1 I got bangs, but day 1.5 I hated the bangs and am now researching 33 new wigs to fix the mistake.  Day 2 I decided was going to be the start of a serious exercise routine, until I went to the Dr. for a ‘routine procedure’ and he tells me no running or lifting for a week – Day 2 goal cancelled and now I need a Day 2 and Day 3 goal. 

Enter day 3 and my shower.  I often find I do my best thinking in the shower. There is just something about the shampoo that wakens up my brain cells and starts my mind thinking.  I’ve been growing my hair out for about 2 years or so now (number 26 on my to-do list to change my life).  I wonder how I got through my day when my hair was in a cute pixie cut circa 2002.  I mean those showers were speedy, just wash with a little baby shampoo and I was outta there!  To think, maybe I could have gone on to graduate school or law school? Maybe I would have invented something or made a huge discovery?  Oh well, I digress, back to my shampoo on Day 3.   Ever since I can remember my friends have told me to write a book. Actually, my co-workers used to tell me to go on The Real World (you know the MTV Reality show before Reality TV).  My dear friend Eli insisted that I should have a tv camera following me around since according to him my life was a sitcom.  Fast forward a few years and I get stranded in Baton Rouge – ok, not “Stranded” but seriously, BATON ROUGE!?!  Well, I was pregnant and stuck so I created a website and wrote about my journeys.  This is how one communicated with friends prior to facebook, blogging, texting. I was hip and oh so cool with my website.  Anyway, again, people said “write a book”.  Nah, I’m way too busy and way too cool to write a book, blog, tweet.   Fast forward a few more years, survive a divorce, enter the world of singlemomdom, start dating, move in with parents, work, quit work, get fired from work, make friends, lose friends, and this entire time my friends keep saying “write a book.”   Back to being in the shower, scrubbing the suds into my hair (Lauren my hairdresser will be so mad when she reads this – according to her I am only to wash my hair twice a week, but I think that is just plain nasty and I scrub a dub often),  alas the thought hits me!  My 33^rd challenge for my 33^rd year is to write a book.  To sit down and put the crazy thoughts that pop into my head and out of my mouth onto paper. And for those of you who know me, my thoughts sometimes tend to spend a wee little bit of time in my head before they just go POP out of my mouth. (more about that later)

To hold myself accountable to my 33day challenge I spread the word to my most favorite supporters. I am tapping them for their support, insight and reminders of the funny shit that I have said and tend to forget.  See above comment, thoughts just run right out and tend not to hang on in my memory.

So, as I start this 33 day challenge, please support me.  (By support I mean tell me I’m fabulous, a perfect writer, you hang on my every word, I have you laughing out loud – but don’t use LOL because I hate it!)  For now I think I’ll start as a blog. Eventually maybe I’ll write a book or a column or nothing, maybe this will just be a little file that lives in the computer that made me happy for 33 days before I turned 33.

Rules of my book writing  (list #1)

1.    I would love to change names in here but really I am not that creative, so if I use your name its cause I love you. I’ll try to come up with a fun nickname or secret id for those stories that are just too embarrassing.  But when it comes to family it is really hard to substitute Fred Flinstone for my Dad and Wilma for my Mom, but Debbie does look good with big white pearls

2.   The stories and thoughts will be true and all mine

3    I might curse, I try not too, but sometimes a curse word is just the right word at the right time

4.  Things might get a little personal – just saying. Can’t say I want my mom and dad reading this but hey! If it’s a true story (cue MTV True Story Lyric here), then I might as well just share

5.   There probably won’t be any order to my posts.  Really, I thrive on order, but my brain just doesn’t work that way. So, if you want me to write “blog” about something, email me and let me know. I have a storage chest in my noggin about ideas for this thing and who knows what will pop up first?

6.   There will be a lot of lists