2012: What I learned

2012 was an interesting year for me.
Far better than a lot of past years in some ways, and far more hellish than some past years in other ways. I guess that’s life though.
I’d like to think that I learned a lot. That I've changed. I would also like to think that I've yet to hit my peak. The best parts of me maybe haven't even found their way to the surface, and some of the very best days of my life have yet to be lived.
Maybe it's a stupid dream, but I like to believe in it anyway.
2012 was a year of travel, love, lessons, tears, hard work, beauty, pain and hope.
I moved this year, Jackson turned 4 this year, Lainie turned 9, I turned 25 and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
There were good holidays, lots of food, trying moments and a few good cry sessions in the bathroom.
We all survived the end of the world-again, and we saw the re-election of our president for a second term. We debated gun control laws, reproductive rights and I learned what the term Fiscal Cliff meant. 
I also learned that I am terrible at graceful exits, breakups, parallel parking and controlling the volume of my voice after 3 drinks. I'm an imperfect person.
I guess that you could sum this year up by just saying "it was another year of Life, and all that entails" 

I won't bore you by rattling off a list of resolutions, and a bunch of promises that most likely won't be kept, but I will say that I hope 2013 ends with all of us healthy, all of us safe, and all of us surrounded by the people who love us. I hope this year is full of lessons learned and real moments where people let their guard down, and show the softest and most tender parts of themselves, and are rewarded by acceptance and grace. 
I hope in 2013 we all take risks, be bold, be brave, and live as much as we can. 
I hope there are naps, and happy birthdays, and lots of good coffee dates with best friends.
I hope for more travel, more discovery, more kisses, more honesty, more openness and more joy.
I hope we all love as much and as deeply as we can.

Now, enjoy my year in review, and be sure to turn your volume on so you can hear the accompanying song. Otherwise it's just a bunch of pictures, and what's special about that?

Happy New Year.

The Friday Diary: It's Back Sort of!

I am not good at many things, as you all know. Cleaning up after big days is definitely one of the areas where I am the weakest. After cooking a huge Thanksgiving meal, who wants to do dishes? After the kids tear through Christmas presents, wrapping paper bits flying about the room like dollar bills in a P Diddy video, who wants to clean up the living room?

Not I.

Especially after Christmas, I want to linger in the magic of the day, lounging about the house in my pajamas for as long as possible, leaving the tree up until New Years, and the kids new toys strewn about the living room as if they just opened them. That way they happen upon their new stuff all throughout the day, and I can sit on the couch and watch them tirelessly play for hours and hours.

And, that way, I don't have to clean. 

I'M STILL LIVING IN THE MAGIC, ASSHOLE, I can say to anyone who looks at the pit my home has become and says 'wow' as if the mess were unacceptable.

So that's what I've been doing with my Christmas break from work. I've been living in the magic, and not cleaning up anything. I've been wearing pajamas and pajamas only since Christmas Eve, and I have not left the house in a full 36 hours.

It's bliss.

I do however feel bad about not posting much lately, and especially for not doing a Friday Diary in a very long time. So let's get caught up, shall we?

...

Letters

Dear Christmas, I love you and I wish you could stay here forever.

Dear Family, you're weird, dysfunctional, blended and different, but I love you all anyway. 

Dear Jenn, next year let's not drink 3 bottles of wine and half a bottle of Whiskey with my dad on Christmas Eve, shall we?

...

Surprised

A couple weekends ago {it's been that long since we've done a Friday Diary, y'all} Bill surprised me with tickets to see The Addams Family Broadway musical. It was awesome. I love The Addams Family, and I love plays, and I love doing fun stuff that is different and out of the ordinary. Quite a good surprise indeed.

...

Gifted

I got this for Christmas. It's an Alice in Wonderland watch/necklace. It is perfect and wonderful in every way.

...

Pinterested

I want to live in a house like this someday.

...

Made

My very first green bean casserole. Believe it or not, I've never made one before. 

It was awesome.

...

Amused

I gave my dad a tablet for Christmas and it was the closest I've ever come to seeing him as happy as a little boy on Christmas morning. He was so enthralled with the magic that is modern technology, he didn't put it down the rest of the day.

I gave Bill the same tablet for Christmas and he was less impressed.

Maybe next year he'll finally tell me what he wants then, won't he, BILL.

...

And now, something to make all of us who grew up in the 90's laugh:

Why Boy Bands Were Better in the 90's

Merry Christmas and Happy Friday, my loves. 

See you all on New Years Eve!

Sometimes There is Cheesecake

Sometimes everything is disjointed, awkward and fumbling and so void of all sense, it is the definition of ridiculous.

Sometimes everything feels heavy. So heavy. Too heavy. How will you carry it?

How will you manage?

Sometimes everything is painful, and scary, because you don't know whether it's an end or a beginning, and if you should be happy or sad, or maybe even both, so you end up just feeling everything, and being scared of all of it.

And sleeping a lot.

Sometimes, though, there is also cheesecake, and cold weather, and scarves and lit up Christmas trees, and little boys who say "Mommy can I lay down with you?", and leftover mashed potatoes, and a 9 year old girl who really wants to read to you.

Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing, or where I'm going, or how I'm supposed to feel about it all.

And then someone offers you cheesecake, and you think everything might turn out OK anyway.

Sometimes.

Merry Christmas, from Sarah and Friends

Christmas this year was quite blessed. Meghan and Jenn and Theron came over, we ate too much food, drank plenty of wine, and opened more presents than the kids could even believe. 

We were surrounded by love and giving and it was a very sweet way to wrap up a very long year.

Merry Christmas.

A Letter to My Children

Dear Jackson and Lainie, 

I haven't told you about what happened on Friday. 

Partly because it doesn't seem right...you're so young and you're both so sensitive...why scare you? But partly because I don't know how.

I don't know how to explain to you that 20 little kids are never going home. I don't know how to explain to you that I cry for them even though they weren't mine, because I can't picture their parents without picturing the both of you, and how my life would come to a screeching halt if I lost either of you. I don't know how to tell you that I cry for the adults who were killed too, the teachers who died for their students. Children that weren't even theirs, they took bullets for without question. Will they ever know how beautiful that is? How even if their students were still lost, the fact that they tried, that they died trying, to protect them, means so so much? 

And I cry for the mother of the shooter.

I cry because she was a mother too, and I didn't know her, or her son, and I don't know what was wrong with him or what role she played, but I know she was a mother and she was human, and we all make mistakes, but she paid the highest price for hers.

It's the worst of all the Mom Fears.

20 years ago, she was scared out of her mind, holding a new baby and hoping for the best.

I don't know how to explain to you that I worry.

I worry about every choice I make, and I worry every time you leave my sight and I worry every time I see one of you cry and every time I see one of you do something unkind {like all children sometimes do, but still, I worry}

I worry about your tender little hearts and your fragile little bodies, and I just love you both so much I wish I could keep you safely tucked behind my big Mom hips forever.

Wrap my arms around you and pretend the world isn't scary and messed up and confusing.

I don't tell you all of this because I don't want you to be afraid.

I don't want you to weep the way I have been {in secret so you don't wonder why} since Friday. I don't want you to be scared or mad, or lose faith in people.

But I do want you to be aware of danger, and aware of how fragile everyone around you is.

How fragile we all are.

How everyone you meet is hurting from some invisible wound, some ouch that you can't see. They're all fighting some monster that you don't know about, and they could all use a little kindness. A little love.

I don't know exactly how to tell you to love people you don't even know, because you never know how much they might be needing it....but I'm trying to show you, and I hope that you see it.

And with everything I have I am trying to love you both in a way that you can always feel, always trust, and always count on.

Every second of every day, I am loving you, worrying about you, protecting you and trying to show you.

I hope your eyes are open and your ears can hear, and your little hearts always stay tender enough to let in the people who need it the most, even if they seem to deserve it the least.

I love you. 

Bigger than anyone.

I Know You're Sad

I know you're sad.

We all are.

What happened in Connecticut is so, so sad. If you have children, it's even harder to take.

I know we're all sad, and I know the shooting is all you're hearing about right now, along with useless and in my opinion, inappropriate debates over who or what is to blame for all this, when all that matters is that those sweet little ones are gone, and it's not OK.

I don't want to debate gun control laws, or whether our mental healthcare system is doing enough, or whether the mother of the Connecticut elementary school shooter is to blame for her 20 year old son killing all those poor little babies. I don't want to rehash the terrible details, or even say the shooter's name. 

He doesn't deserve the attention.

But I do want to laugh. 

Not out of any kind of disrespect for the victims, those poor little angels, or their families, who are now picking out caskets instead of Christmas presents, but because you can only cry for so long before you have to take a deep breath and try to smile again.

You have to find a brief moment of levity, wherever you can, or the sorrow will just eat you right up.

As Truvy says in Steel Magnolias "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion". 

So, join me, won't you?

If you didn't play Oregon Trail in school, this will mean nothing to you.

Nothing beats a fuzzy baby penguin. 

Letters to Lucia

Dear Lucia,

How have we known each other almost 8 years? It feels like just yesterday {yet somehow several lifetimes ago at the same time} that we were bonding over hot wings and Wedding Crashers, and starting on our long road of adventures as partners in crime.

When I think of you I think of abandoned houses, Parliament Lights and Dodge Neons. Pick up truck tailgates and the middle of nowhere desert. I think of late nights and endless conversations. My first apartment, our first apartment. Secrets, Vodka, parties and matching t-shirts. Santa Monica, windows down, Josh Franks and too many pictures.

You know my past, you know my secrets and you're such a huge part of my story.

We've lived so many moments in our own little world together, and sometimes it all feels like a dream.

Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that it did happen, we were those people, we lived that life.

All those years ago.

Now we're both moms with careers, trying to be grown ups.

And you're still here.

My wingman, my sister, my friend.

I love you.

I Don't Want to Fall In Love

I would rather not fall in love again.

Not with a boy, and all their fickle opinions and volitile desires.

Maybe with the color blue, soft blankets, green eyes, the moon.

Maybe with a rainstorm {if it ever did rain anymore}, a good book, an old picture of you.

I could fall in love with a song, the perfect harmonies and melodies and drop drum beat seaping into my chest like the loveliest of colds. A favorite affliction.

I could fall in love with the side of a face, the shape of your hands, the scent of my sleeping children.

A hot shower, a quiet evening, a long walk in the cold.

Heavy jackets, winter boots, tight jeans and good booze.

Perhaps I will fall in love with safe things.

Things that don't leave, don't lie, don't swell and fall like the sea, always changing their mind.

For now I would be OK with just knowing my heart is still capable of love, but my soul is at peace on its own.

For now I just want to know that I still can feel the way I once did.

Even if I don't.
Even if I choose not to, anymore.

A Brief History of Beliefs

I believe that music is important, and it can often tell you a lot of what you need to know about a person. I believe it's OK to choose your friends based on the music they like, at least when you're very young and still deciding who you are and what you want. I broke up with someone once over their favorite type of pie, and I've yet to regret that decision.

I believe that if I didn't write, I would suffer, and that is why I do it. I think it would be nice to be published, recognized, earn money for all this agonizing over whether to write 'an' or 'the', but if that never happens I don't think it will make much difference in my decision to write or not. After 25 years I've finally accepted that what I am is a writer.

I believe you should marry someone that you love to kiss, and you love to talk to. In 50 years when age takes it's toll, those two attributes will matter just as much, if not more, than any other quality they possess.

I believe that everyone should get dessert. I don't want to live in a world where dessert is only eaten on special occasions, and chocolate after a meal is not common place.

I believe fun should be had as often as possible, and adventure should always be my main priority. Maybe that's irresponsible or immature, but if it is than I suppose I am irresponsible and immature. What I am not though, is sorry about it.

I believe that you shouldn't judge people by their relatives. Some of us were born into a hot box of crazy, and we had more to overcome than other people, but it doesn't make us bad people. 

I believe you should able to do whatever you want with your hair when you're in high school. Cut it, dye it, shave it off, grow it down to the floor. It will grow back. You will survive. Go ahead and change.

I don't think marriage and love go hand in hand with forever very often. And I don't think that the people who do manage to stay married forever, always stay in love forever. I think being in love comes and goes, but loving a person is what matters, and that's what you work hard to do a good job at every day. I think people leave so easily once the excitement fades, instead of staying and loving that person during the in between times like they promised to, and getting creative or being flexible enough to bend and change and see things differently, so that maybe that in love rush of happiness will come back. I think I live in a generation of people who quit and leave too easily. They have this idea that they should never be asked to change or adjust anything about themselves for a significant other, and that anything less than movie-like passion is unworthy of their time. I believe someone who you can always talk to, and someone who you can always love and wouldn't want to live without is your soul mate, and the one who shows up and makes themselves meant for you by always being there and caring about your happiness as if it were their own, is the one worth sticking it out for, even during the in between times.

I believe that every once and a while you should call out of work with your boyfriend or husband or girlfriend or wife, and spend the day in bed watching movies and taking naps. 

I believe that sleep is not a sign of laziness but an indication that repair is needed. Whether physical, mental or emotional, sleep is the time that your soul uses to fix all that may be wearing down about you. Don't wake a sleeping child unless you have to, and don't see naps as a bad thing even after you're 'too old' to take them.

Work hard.

Tell the truth.

Say what you need to say.

I believe it is a long road to wisdom, but a short one to being ignored. So live your opinions rather than preach them.

Forgive yourself.

Forgive the people who never apologized.

Eat plenty of ice cream, read every book you get your hands on, and kiss like it's the very last time, every single time. Because you never know when it might be.

Christmas Party

 Saturday night was my company's Christmas party at the Montelucia Resort in Paradise Valley. 

Bill came as my date because he's nice.

It was a very nice night.