Each December, despite the lack of sleep, lack of healthy eating habits and lack of structure my family falls prey to over holiday break (on several nights I had to aggressively negotiate Aidy down from her requested “7 million” post-dinner gummy bears to five, which she put in her mouth all at the same time) I get really excited. Really motivated for the year ahead.

Certain years I’ve been more disenchanted by the idea of “resolutions,” thinking things like, “Well, if you’re going to make resolutions, why wait until January 1st? Start working towards them now, don’t wait a second longer!” and other years, like this one, I’m gung-ho, thinking things like, “Of course January 1st is the best time to make resolutions! It’s the beginning of the new year!”

So, on the morning of January 1, I decided to write some ideas down. Resolutions sort of, but I didn’t hold myself to any particular formulation or specificity. I wrote down that I wanted to do more one-on-one things with the kids, and that I wanted to decide on the next steps in my career. That I wanted to read more, and also that I wanted “more bravery, less worrying” in my life. I know vague goals are often left unrealized but I didn’t care. It felt good to start the year this way, especially because I’d spent the night before with a sick child, missing the party with friends we’d been looking forward to for months. It was a bummer, although my calm evening watching “Harry Potter” movies with Gabe was one of those “no place I’d rather be” experiences (I mean, both of us would have rather been at the party, but you get what I’m saying).

2020 was off to a proactive start.

Today, however - back in the swing of school and schedules and projects I didn’t work on over the break - I became very stressed out. It was a very particular kind of stress, the type that manifests in your body. The kind that, I’ve learned, can result in middle-of-the-night panic if left unchecked.

I didn’t love it, but at least I could diagnose it: all I was feeling was the sense of being overwhelmed by the responsibilites I’d had the privlege to ignore during our vacation. No big deal. But still, a feeling that erased the high I’d achieved writing all of those noble resolutions with my sidekick (Gabe deemed them “good” which I took as high praise) just one day prior.

But a feeling I could conquer, I decided, if I worked through it. If I wrote down all the pressing things I had to do on a piece of paper, then began making my way through them despite the feeling. It would cease in time, but trying to conquer it in one fell swoop wasn’t going to work. I was just going to have to feel uncomfortable and annoyed for awhile. I was going to have to put my fingers on the keyboard and type paragraphs that turn into stories without feeling inspired. Not to mention J and I were going to have to hide all the gummies from Aidy and wrestle my children back into some sort of semblance of regular bedtimes.

There was, of course, one thing that would make it all a little more tolerable. And that’s writing about it here.

I’ve been writing on this blog since I was in my mid-twenties. Taking the drudgery and hilarity and stresses and sadness from my unremarkable daily life and typing it up for all to read. And the crazy thing, the really quite crazy thing, is that people, for some reason, read it.

Not you know, throngs of people or anything. But you guys. You read it. And you commented with your own stories. You told me you like it when I wrote about so-and-so or this or that. You made me feel like sharing the minor and major moments that make up my life (that make up all our lives) wasn’t just a means for me to talk endlessly about myself - even though it is kind of that, isn’t it? - but a way for us to connect.

And even though I always feel much better when I talk through my feelings with others (J might interupt here that sometimes what I do is “dump my feelings on others” without their consent) I think that the sense of connection is what I’m after. That’s what makes it not only more tolerable, but truly wonderful.

It’s what makes these not-funny-or-meaningful-in-the-moment-but-will-be-funny-or-meaningful-a-few-months-from-now incidents much easier to digest, and more amusing to contemplate. Having you along for the ride is the key.

Silently praying that my child doesn’t actually choke on gummy bears because the hospital is not super close to my mom’s house. Quietly waking up my exhausted son just before midnight so we could count down to one with the ball drop, because I promised I would. Missing the party, trying to be a good mother and sitting in a coffee shop on January 2 thinking that if I get one more email detailing a duty I needed to tend to I was going to quit (all of it, quit all of it).

Deciding, instead, to quit none of it and tell you about it here.

This - this mundane, on-a-whim, colloquial type of storytelling I do - is the thing I like best. But I wouldn’t like it nearly as much if you weren’t there on the other side of this keyboard.

This is my last of three “grateful” posts and the most important one, considering the audience. I am grateful for you.

Thanks for making me feel like a real writer. For listening and telling me your own tales. For reminding me we are all in this together.

Happy 2020. I’ll talk to you soon.

My plan was to write these “grateful” blog posts in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, which obviously I did not. My plan was also to write about just one idea in every post. But as I was running the annual Turkey Trot up here in Boothbay Harbor, Maine (where we spend our Thanksgivings) yesterday, I was flooded with thoughts about why I’m grateful, starting with all those cheerful people out facing the pelting, wet snow. One dressed as a pilgrim. Everybody smiling.

So I decided that this time around I’d write about some of the things I was thinking about as I made my way into town, back over the footbridge and, finally, back into the YMCA parking lot, before we gathered with friends over hot toddies for our annual, frigid, football game (which I never play) then over cocktails and heated political talk (even though we were all arguing the same points) for an amazing Thanksgiving dinner, then sat by the roaring fire, letting our stomachs settle, but also heading back into the kitchen to secretly eat more pie right out of the pan.

I am grateful for all of that. I am grateful for all of that, and so much more.

My crazy dog, despite the fact that when we were getting another dog (even though J said he “wasn’t ready” for another dog, but I interpreted that as him never being ready for another dog, since he’s not really a dog person, and got one anyway) I said that what I wanted was a super chill dog, the kind that will follow you anywhere and then plop down for a nap! And what I got was a super intense, super smart and motivated dog, who treats every task like a military drill and will…not…ever…stop…bringing….back…the…goddamn…tennis ball. Still, I am grateful for her, and the way she loves our family and greets every day with such passionate enthusiasm, and the way she jumps into bed with Gabe and puts her paw over his hand while he’s reading before he goes to sleep every night.
This pie I’m eating for breakfast.
The people who will litearlly save the world, wherever they are.
The city of New Haven and its real-deal, everyday friendliness; its excellent ethnic restaurants; its free art museums; its somehow-small-town vibe and the fact that I run into people I know everywhere I go.
My circles of friends, our monthly dinners, concert-going, coffee dates and text chains. Annual get togethers, potential trips, impromptu phone calls.
Aidy’s extreme extrovertedness; Nora’s writing; the crazy activities that Gabe plans, and how inventive they are, even though they make me so crazy because he always wants me to freeze something, then microwave something, then make something out of cardboard, then it doesn’t work out, now everyone is crying.
J’s optimism.
My brother, who is judging us for eating pie for breakfast, even though it was totally him who got into the pie more than anyone else last night and demolished the pumpkin, like, entirely, leaving a small, weird, sliver, as though that made it not so bad. My mother’s propensity to get it done, whatever it is, no matter how challening. My best-ever mother-in-law and “sisters!” and extended family, raucous gatherings and laughing and laughing and laughing. Nieces and nephews and cousins and second-cousins and never learning what first-cousin-once-removed means even though I could easily look it up.
Christmas music! Christmas lights!
The ocean, the stars, the warm yellow lights in people’s windows when I walk the crazy dog at night. The cold quiet, and the warm rush and shouted, happy exclamations when I come back home, as though I’ve been gone forever.

Grateful #3

grateful #2