Christmas plus two December birthdays in our immediate family make Wabi a frantically busy nonblogger this month. But I'm slipping online in the dwindling last hour of 2008 to say HOORAY, this damned month and annoying year is finally over!
Don't get me wrong, we had a great Christmas. The kids were adorable, and even though we had fewer gifts under the tree due to the loss of my income this year, we seemed to enjoy it more than usual. I can honestly say that I'm grateful for every damned, sleepless, stomach-churning moment. And sitting in front of the TV watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve tonight may be lame, but it feels like progress to me. After all, last year Little A and I spent this night together at Children's hospital, Big A spent it sleeping at her aunt's house in Sonoma, and DH spent it by himself. (Poor DH ... I can only imagine how lonely he felt that night, coming home from the hospital to our empty, cold house.) Now we are all together under one roof again. Thank God.
I would like to say that since Little A didn't die -- something I really feared could happen last December -- the rest is just gravy. But I am a small and bitchy person who bounces between immense gratitude and equally huge pissiness. Because Jesus H. Christ, 2008 was hard. Financially, professionally, physically, and emotionally difficult. Something had to give this past year, and over and over again, the thing that gave was me. I'm heavier, wrinklier, drabber, and poorer in so many ways. So while I'm glad it wasn't worse, it could have been a damn side better. Really.
I don't usually do resolutions, but this year I'll bite. In 2009, I want to hunt for joy. Too many of the past few years the Wabi-Sabis have measured the worth of their years with the yardstick of past horrors. And I am really tired of saying that a year must fall into the good category only because I somehow survived it. I am ready for a good year by anyone's measure -- even the happy oblivions who skip through life. I want one of their good years.
It's time to try for something new and different. But after being in crisis mode for so long, I fear my horizons have narrowed to the point where I don't even know how to dream big anymore. I'm actually having a little trouble figuring out what might bring the family more joy in the coming year. It's a little alarming.
So help me out: When was the last time you were deleriously happy? And is it something you willfully made happen, or was it happenstance?
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3 comments:
I'm afraid to say that I don't think deliriously happy is ever going to happen for me again. Subduedly happy is the best I will hope for and actually all I wish for.
I hope your 2009 is significantly better than your 2008. So glad that you were under one roof in reasonable health this year. Happy New Year.
The last purely, deliriously happy I remember is laying in bed, pregnant with A, Monkey having crawled in next to me. I had both of my children with me.
Since then I've had joy, great joy, and great happiness, but none of it untinged. As to what brought it on, besides the blatantly obvious-- babies for us and blog friends, watching people succeed. Watching Monkey in the circus camp, and then successfully accomplishing the catch, watching her friends hit their own success markers on the damn thing. And flying myself. And just the other day-- skiing again, even if I can feel just how far I am from how I used to ski, before.
Happy and joyous year to you and yours.
I don't know. I genuinely don't know. And that's worrisome. The day we got the CVS results and learned they were clear and he was a boy? I was too out of it for the birth (someday I'll do the birth story). There have been quiet moments of joy, but not deliriously happy. Much food for thought.
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