Who doesn’t love getting something new?

New seems so full of promise. Here comes a new year! It’s never been here before. What will it contain?

I know I love to think about new things and what possibilities could be created.

Many many times I’ve looked and new years and said “THIS year I will be different and change..”

Reminds me of that old joke

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

One

But it really has to want to change

I’m sick of feeling shame and regret. I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to be motivated by self-disgust or a feeling that there is something wrong with me.

I’m just who I am, and pretty much who I always have been.

I want to fill this year with stuff that is fun and even more me than I’ve ever  been before.

Which things on my ‘bucket list’ will get crossed off this year?

Which will get added?

That’s probably the best part, I think. Coming up with new ideas of things I’d love to do.

A friend of mine went on a rant about how some people annoy him, giving little biting indightments of their flawed behavior. I said “You have so many things you could make with your brains. Why use them to be irritated? Especially since I know you can work up an irritated annoyance to last weeks, with a half life of years.”

He laughed at himself.

We are all like that. I know I can hold on to a slight or an annoyance and polish it, bringing out in my mind facets of how WRONG this or that person was.

What a ridiculous use of my thoughts.

I would rather thing of good ideas than rehash bad ones.

Next week comes Christmas. It’s a big deal where I live. We set aside this time to appreciate and delight each other.

Somehow, my attention is focused on all the other things that need to be DONE. FINE, I’ll give you a list of presents I would like to receive. Oh NO, I need to create a list of presents my daughter wants. Look at the calendar! I am SO BEHIND.

All this for the Christmas morning. The morning of preparation and delight and surprising each other and being surprised.

I caught myself thinking that kids have the best of it. That I have to lose sleep and work to remember all the things.

Last weekend I found myself crawling away from things every chance I got, burying myself in a new book.

It was a really good book.

And I would read as far as I could, then pop up when I had to (usually a bit late) and rush to do the next MANDATORY thing.

By Sunday night I felt impossibly behind and resentful. Kids have the best of Christmas I thought. I’d heard this sentiment before. I sat down to eat dinner, since I’d barely eaten all day. Of all the innumerable things I had NOT done and still had to do, how was I going to finish my weekend?

I could have wrapped myself in my book again. I had stayed up too late the night before because it was so fascinating. It didn’t feel good anymore. I regretted the loss of sleep.

What did I WANT to do?

I ended up putting my headphones on, and closing my door to be alone. Me. Alone. I would wrap presents.

Such a small thing, to ask myself what I wanted. Isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be about? Wishing? Wanting?

I had told myself that wanting was for other people, and that I didn’t have time to ask myself what I wanted.

I decompressed, and felt really good about wrapping all the presents I had already bought my family. I DID want this Christmas to be a certain way, and I had made most of it happen already.

It was also ok for me to want things for me. Delight and surprise. I surprised myself to discover I just wanted to get something ordinary things done, uninterrupted. It felt good.

I am willing to give thought to what else I might want. Maybe next year I’ll go get them.

The kids all being pushed and pulled into the positions for pageant rehearsal.

“Am I supposed to sit here?”

The director Amanda would say, “I still haven’t decided yet.”

She was molding the story, the action, fitting the people and the play to each other. It took a lot of different people to realize her vision.

I could see her little girl, not quite talking yet, wanting to be the star. Mommy Mommy! Me me me! But mommy had to push all the other big kids into their place, to learn their lines and hit their marks, and the toddler wasn’t the one on stage.

Which drove her over the edge.

And the people on the stage had to share the stage and perform. For this time, it was not enough to just be themselves; the show had to be created.

I sat.

I was a stage mom that day. Not the first time. Not loving it. I would have like a stage. I could sympathize with the toddler.

I could see my unboundedly creative daughter struggling too. She was making nonsense words while Amanda was trying to speak and give direction. It stressed the seams of her being to have someone else being so powerfully creative while she sat.

She knew she had things to say and be, and while she was submitting to the directions she just had to add her own flavor, her own noise to the mix.

Veronica may not have had a vision right then but she had a drive. She was compelled to express herself.

Amanda not only had a vision, she had an imperative. She had taken on this responsibility, and had to put all this jumble together into a performance. It was constantly in motion too, as the little girls went tearing away into the balcony when they had the merest second to themselves.

“Girls! Come back! It’s your line! Don’t you want to be Queen?”

I remembered the chaos and excitement of the pageant rehearsals when I was a girl. Sometimes I would even have the solo.

I was in the seats this time, wishing I had planned better to have something productive to do during the wait.

There was a thickening in the air, excitement and boredom and terror. Creativity and performance sent unfamiliar juices through my little one.

And me. I wished I had a solo.

But the day dragged on, and I had to make sure she could handle it. Stay calm, sorry your head aches, here’s some water.

The recorded song was played again and again, just the one section. What is that chord progression? I wonder if I could find it.

When they were finally done, I went to the piano, and tried to find it.

Not three notes played, and Veronica pushes me aside. “I want to play!”

I just spent ALL DAY watching you, kid. Don’t I get a chance to finish an idea? When is MY moment?

Not today.

I write. Writing is lonely. In writing, I am the sole creator of my universe. In the messy world of collaborative art like theater and music it’s something else altogether.

I’m not sure if I’ve figured out how to share the stage of life comfortably with my daughter. I remember Amanda was figuring out her show as she went along. She had a clear vision, the bones of it. I’ll have to be a little looser with my universe I think, or it will shatter on contact with real life.

I read a Facebook post the other day:

“I woke up this morning thinking ‘I need to charge my laptop!’

Then I woke up and found it was already plugged in.

Thank you, last night me!”

Isn’t it funny how some little thing, or some series of little things, can add up to a very wonderful now?

Every day, every moment we choose what to do and what not to do. The choices seem small and unimportant. Yet over time, they stack up into something substantial.

Good habits, or bad. Small perseverances that shape a whole life.

The version of my life made of diversions, reversion and perversion.

Habits and traditions begin with accidents. The best plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy.

Which is why

I am so grateful to the me of five and a half years ago. The me that started writing this Weekly wonder, and let it be exactly and whatever I wanted it to be.

I doubted and despised what I was doing. I judged it harshly, and appreciated it sometimes. I disregarded and discounted my little essays.

But I still wrote them. I wrote them for me.

And then I wrote them for you.

Thank you me, for writing this for 5 years. Thank you for allowing me to arrive at this moment of appreciation.

And very very thank you all for reading these, whenever you do, whenever you can, and for however long it’s been since you’ve discovered it.

We are all doing something unique. We’re letting thoughts pass through our minds and leave us the better for them.

This is a time of tradition and remembering what happened last year and last time.

It’s been a pretty ugly crazy beautiful year with all the things we each did and didn’t do.

Thank you all. I love how this adventure is turning out.