...Auld Lang Syne...
Here is my obligatory New Year's Post. Before you click the back button, be assured that this post won't actually be about the baby (at least not totally) or be full of gushings about how great a year it has been. I had a mini-epiphany today as I was driving around town, and I wanted to share it with you and write it down for the sake of Future Christy. Future Christy so loves finding nuggets of wisdom from Past Christy, so I like to look out for her whenever I can.
Today has been a totally normal day. Patrick is working, and I'm hanging out with baby Lulu. She and I made the grand trek into Gastonia to have new tires put on my car, and we ended up at my parents' house because I didn't want to submit the occupants of the Mr. Nobody service waiting room to the melodious musings of a hungry, irritated infant. While I was there, Mom suggested that we look at some old home videos that my ailing Papaw recently found and gave to her. Her primary reason for suggesting this was the fact that my beloved Nana is featured playing whiffle ball on the video from Easter 1995. Before we got to the Easter clip, we watched part of Morgan's 4th birthday at Kate's Skating Rink (all you Gaston County people know what I'm talking about. Whoop, Whoop.) and my 8th birthday later that year at the YMCA pool.
As we watched the first clip from Morgan's birthday, I couldn't stop smiling. She was so little and sweet. I had forgotten how quiet, shy, and timid she was at that age. She was absolutely precious. Seven-year-old me sat beside her in the birthday room and helped her open her gifts. We had matching bows in our hair; hers was white, and mine was pink. We were surrounded by all of our childhood friends, many of whom I haven't seen in years, and we were all so tiny, precious, and excited. I saw some of our parents too, so incredibly young and fresh. Mom would have been twenty-eight and Dad twenty-nine. Mom was beautiful despite her awful early 90's acid washed jeans. Dad's hair was completely dark, so unlike the shock of white hair he has today.
We fast-forwarded to my swim party a month later in March of 1992. I was surrounded by the same childhood friends and their parents, but we were wearing arm floaties and looked like tiny terriers after being left outside during a choking rain storm at this party. As I blew out the candles on the My Little Pony cake, I was flanked on my left by a classmate I had long since forgotten. I remember that her name was Savannah, and we would always race each other when we were doing classwork in Mrs. Kaiser's 1st/2nd grade combination class. I can't tell you her last name or where she is now, what her life has been like. I have no idea. And to my right, or rather, ON my right, was Morgan, still precious, timid, and adorable. I don't think someone could have slipped a piece of paper between the two of us she was standing so close to me.
We then made it to the clip from Easter of 1995. As promised, there was my Nana swinging a bright orange whiffle bat around like a madwoman. She knocked the ball out of the frame and said, "How'd ya like THAT!?" and laughed her beautiful, effervescent laugh. My cousins and uncle were all there, again shockingly young. My uncle was thin with no trace of grey in his hair or beard, and my cousins were both so tiny. Morgan and I were a little older, but I was struck by how goofy and uninhibited we were. Nana pitched the whiffle ball to me a few times as I smacked it again and again. I made faces at the camera, and Morgan tried to put her foot up close to the lens. We were so, well, dumb (but in the good way).
Surprisingly, I didn't feel overwhelmingly sad after watching all of this. I was sure I would begin weeping uncontrollably when I saw my grandmother, but I just smiled because I hadn't seen her or heard her voice and laugh in such a long, long time. There was a little pang of sadness when I saw how close Morgan and I were in all the videos, physically and emotionally, because I realize that I didn't value that as much as I should have when we were young. Her proximity to me at any given point in time was a constant source of annoyance. I was frequently mean to her when all she wanted was to be near me. I would give up a lot of things to have my sister near me now. Overall, though, I felt refreshed, energized after seeing the videos. I used to keep a book of quotes when I was little, and several of these quotes have remained with me through the fog of time. "The older we get, the more we need the people who knew us when we were young." It was surreal to see my ten-year-old self while I was holding my own daughter on my lap today. I've forgotten many things about myself and others as I've grown, which is something I promised myself I'd never do. I want to remember what life was like when I was seven; I want to remember the things my sister and I used to do; I want to value the things I've got when I've got them.
Please don't mistake me and think that this entry is about the lamentation of times gone by. Would I want to be ten again? Please. The buck teeth and center hair part made me grimace. I'll take twenty-seven over ten any day. No, this entry is about something different. I'll give you my thesis momentarily, so bear with me. So many people either live in a constant state of mourning for the past or in a constant state of wishing for the future. I find both terrifying. Yes, there are things in the past for which I am nostalgic (for example, it took me a couple of years to snap out of my extreme mourning over the passing of my collegiate life), and I, of course, have hopes for the future, but to fixate on either one of them is counter-productive and, well, damaging. There have been several times in my life when I've wished for either the past or the future. When I look back at my life, I can see good things in all those "bad" times that I couldn't or wouldn't see when I was in the thick of them.
I struggle daily with worry and busyness and exhaustion. I hate this. I don't want to feel overwhelmed or stressed out or just generally angry and negative all the time, but it has a way of creeping in on me if I'm not being vigilant. I can't stand for my house to be a wreck and, since the birth of Lucy, it has been. I stress out so much over the clutter in my house, over assignments I have yet to grade, over lesson plans I have yet to craft, over thank you notes yet to write, Pinterest crafts yet to make, things left unsaid, things left undone, that I sometimes don't know who I am anymore. When did I turn into this person? I look in the mirror, and I am unarguably getting older. There are crow's feet creeping along the sides of my eyes, and my hair is finally beginning to grow back (google postpartum hair loss if this is something with which you are unfamiliar), but it's white, not grey, white, but that's not what bothers me. To use another quote I've collected over the years, "Do not regret growing older; it is a privilege denied to many." What bothers me is that I've let myself forget what it felt like to be seven. I've let myself slowly lose pleasure in appreciating the little things, the things that really matter.
I felt good today. I felt like myself, my real self - not the stressed out, negative, overwhelmed me of late. I've missed this self. So, even though I think New Years Resolutions are cliche, there is something to be said about making positive life changes even if they do come at the dawn of a new year. I promise to my seven-year-old self and my twenty-seven-year-old self to stop fixating on the things that don't matter and focus on the things that do. I can't change the past; I can't control the future. I can only relish the blessed, terrible, frightening, comforting, bitter, delicious present. I'll end with one last quote (I can feel the eye rolls), but it's one I've loved since college, and I specifically remember it because I always wanted to feel how I felt at that point in my life, so here goes: "To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." (Walter Pater) I vow to burn always.
Today has been a totally normal day. Patrick is working, and I'm hanging out with baby Lulu. She and I made the grand trek into Gastonia to have new tires put on my car, and we ended up at my parents' house because I didn't want to submit the occupants of the Mr. Nobody service waiting room to the melodious musings of a hungry, irritated infant. While I was there, Mom suggested that we look at some old home videos that my ailing Papaw recently found and gave to her. Her primary reason for suggesting this was the fact that my beloved Nana is featured playing whiffle ball on the video from Easter 1995. Before we got to the Easter clip, we watched part of Morgan's 4th birthday at Kate's Skating Rink (all you Gaston County people know what I'm talking about. Whoop, Whoop.) and my 8th birthday later that year at the YMCA pool.
As we watched the first clip from Morgan's birthday, I couldn't stop smiling. She was so little and sweet. I had forgotten how quiet, shy, and timid she was at that age. She was absolutely precious. Seven-year-old me sat beside her in the birthday room and helped her open her gifts. We had matching bows in our hair; hers was white, and mine was pink. We were surrounded by all of our childhood friends, many of whom I haven't seen in years, and we were all so tiny, precious, and excited. I saw some of our parents too, so incredibly young and fresh. Mom would have been twenty-eight and Dad twenty-nine. Mom was beautiful despite her awful early 90's acid washed jeans. Dad's hair was completely dark, so unlike the shock of white hair he has today.
We fast-forwarded to my swim party a month later in March of 1992. I was surrounded by the same childhood friends and their parents, but we were wearing arm floaties and looked like tiny terriers after being left outside during a choking rain storm at this party. As I blew out the candles on the My Little Pony cake, I was flanked on my left by a classmate I had long since forgotten. I remember that her name was Savannah, and we would always race each other when we were doing classwork in Mrs. Kaiser's 1st/2nd grade combination class. I can't tell you her last name or where she is now, what her life has been like. I have no idea. And to my right, or rather, ON my right, was Morgan, still precious, timid, and adorable. I don't think someone could have slipped a piece of paper between the two of us she was standing so close to me.
We then made it to the clip from Easter of 1995. As promised, there was my Nana swinging a bright orange whiffle bat around like a madwoman. She knocked the ball out of the frame and said, "How'd ya like THAT!?" and laughed her beautiful, effervescent laugh. My cousins and uncle were all there, again shockingly young. My uncle was thin with no trace of grey in his hair or beard, and my cousins were both so tiny. Morgan and I were a little older, but I was struck by how goofy and uninhibited we were. Nana pitched the whiffle ball to me a few times as I smacked it again and again. I made faces at the camera, and Morgan tried to put her foot up close to the lens. We were so, well, dumb (but in the good way).
Surprisingly, I didn't feel overwhelmingly sad after watching all of this. I was sure I would begin weeping uncontrollably when I saw my grandmother, but I just smiled because I hadn't seen her or heard her voice and laugh in such a long, long time. There was a little pang of sadness when I saw how close Morgan and I were in all the videos, physically and emotionally, because I realize that I didn't value that as much as I should have when we were young. Her proximity to me at any given point in time was a constant source of annoyance. I was frequently mean to her when all she wanted was to be near me. I would give up a lot of things to have my sister near me now. Overall, though, I felt refreshed, energized after seeing the videos. I used to keep a book of quotes when I was little, and several of these quotes have remained with me through the fog of time. "The older we get, the more we need the people who knew us when we were young." It was surreal to see my ten-year-old self while I was holding my own daughter on my lap today. I've forgotten many things about myself and others as I've grown, which is something I promised myself I'd never do. I want to remember what life was like when I was seven; I want to remember the things my sister and I used to do; I want to value the things I've got when I've got them.
Please don't mistake me and think that this entry is about the lamentation of times gone by. Would I want to be ten again? Please. The buck teeth and center hair part made me grimace. I'll take twenty-seven over ten any day. No, this entry is about something different. I'll give you my thesis momentarily, so bear with me. So many people either live in a constant state of mourning for the past or in a constant state of wishing for the future. I find both terrifying. Yes, there are things in the past for which I am nostalgic (for example, it took me a couple of years to snap out of my extreme mourning over the passing of my collegiate life), and I, of course, have hopes for the future, but to fixate on either one of them is counter-productive and, well, damaging. There have been several times in my life when I've wished for either the past or the future. When I look back at my life, I can see good things in all those "bad" times that I couldn't or wouldn't see when I was in the thick of them.
I struggle daily with worry and busyness and exhaustion. I hate this. I don't want to feel overwhelmed or stressed out or just generally angry and negative all the time, but it has a way of creeping in on me if I'm not being vigilant. I can't stand for my house to be a wreck and, since the birth of Lucy, it has been. I stress out so much over the clutter in my house, over assignments I have yet to grade, over lesson plans I have yet to craft, over thank you notes yet to write, Pinterest crafts yet to make, things left unsaid, things left undone, that I sometimes don't know who I am anymore. When did I turn into this person? I look in the mirror, and I am unarguably getting older. There are crow's feet creeping along the sides of my eyes, and my hair is finally beginning to grow back (google postpartum hair loss if this is something with which you are unfamiliar), but it's white, not grey, white, but that's not what bothers me. To use another quote I've collected over the years, "Do not regret growing older; it is a privilege denied to many." What bothers me is that I've let myself forget what it felt like to be seven. I've let myself slowly lose pleasure in appreciating the little things, the things that really matter.
I felt good today. I felt like myself, my real self - not the stressed out, negative, overwhelmed me of late. I've missed this self. So, even though I think New Years Resolutions are cliche, there is something to be said about making positive life changes even if they do come at the dawn of a new year. I promise to my seven-year-old self and my twenty-seven-year-old self to stop fixating on the things that don't matter and focus on the things that do. I can't change the past; I can't control the future. I can only relish the blessed, terrible, frightening, comforting, bitter, delicious present. I'll end with one last quote (I can feel the eye rolls), but it's one I've loved since college, and I specifically remember it because I always wanted to feel how I felt at that point in my life, so here goes: "To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." (Walter Pater) I vow to burn always.
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