I love a New Year. Just like I love a new school year, or a new week, or a new organizer. I'm a planner. And when you're a planner, a fresh start is the holy grail. Real or symbolic, a new year just has so much potential. Do I always make the most of this potential? Of course not. I'm human, and no amount of planning can take the lazy out of me. Does all of this build-up lead to an inevitable crash of disappointment and self-flagellation? Generally, yes. But who's to say I wouldn't end up there anyway? And I sure do enjoy the build-up. It's just nice to take stock once in a while, to look at the way you're living your life and compare it to your version of the ideal life, in an effort to get you that much closer to where you want to be. I enjoy thinking about what I want to do differently, about new things I want to try and about goals I want to set. Some people don't, and by all means, I don't think everyone should make New Year's Resolutions or party like it's 1999 if they don't feel that way inclined. But I do. I have resolutions, I've made a list of things I want to do this year...in fact I'm still working on it because I just love doing it so darn much. But that's me.
My husband doesn't make New Year's resolutions. He rejects the whole idea as a waste of time and energy. That's cool. He pretty much does what he wants to do and doesn't do what he doesn't want to do anyway. He's uncomplicated that way, and I like that about him. Sometimes I wish he were a little more willing of a partner to get all giddy at the prospect of a clean slate with all sorts of possibilities to add to it, but then we would probably just whip each other into a frenzy of anticipation and burn out by January 2nd.
One thing we both agree on is celebrating things whenever possible. He may not have any resolutions, and I may have a whole whack that I won't keep, but we both wanted to do something special with our daughter today. So we went into the city to an arts and crafts cafe (they have everything in New York) called Moomah Cafe and got all artsy and craftsy. They have a bunch of DIT (Do-It-Together) art projects that you can pick from, and after almost no deliberation E chose the paint-your-own-doghouse. We smocked her up, I picked out the most stellar paint combination, and she spent all of five minutes painting before making the transition to foreman, and ordering us around while she ate a pizza bagel. J and I happily worked away at painting the perfect doghouse until she had had her fill of bagel, and then we explored the "funky forest" in the back where light projections of bats flew on the wall and rivers danced across the floor. Pretty cool.
Like I said, I have lots of resolutions and I'm sure I'll make more, but if every single day of 2011 is like this one, full of fun and family and laughs and unsolicited hugs and kisses, there will be no disappointing crash in my future. What there will be is a more streamlined list of resolutions for 2012: Do what I did in 2011.
Happy New Year!
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