Today there was a baby blessing, a family picture, and a dinner. When PLP and I arrived home there was a dog to tend to, then my cousin and her husband showed up to check out the kitchen cabinets (they are remodeling their kitchen too). Otherwise I stay in the living room — something I consider communal space, so if she wants to talk to me or see me, here I am. Meanwhile she stays in her room and watches her Hulu queue that seems to never end.
I applied for jobs today. I took some pictures. I researched Alaska and other potential job relocation sites. I sit in the front room alone on the computer and wonder if this solitude is how life is meant to be.
Tonight I took a personality test and turned out to be INFJ. It seems appropriate, but don’t they all seem appropriate? At the beginning of a new year I feel like when I was a kid getting new shoes. Each new pair made me feel more alive, more capable. I was going to run faster, jump higher, be something more than just me. I think I expect the same thing each new year, that somehow I’ll be improved, a better version of me. And from what I can tell I’m just me.
Earlier while I was rebelling against writing I watched a commercial that had fireworks in it. It made me think of when I was young and fireworks used to awe me, and now, what? Loud. Bright. Smelly. How does the world lose so much magic? Does experience burn the wonder of the world out of us? Do we assume adults are so knowledgeable because they have lost the luster of the wonder in their vision? Practical? Yes. Wondrous? Good question.
So I’m trying to come up with some vision for the new year and all I can see are shoes and fireworks, but not just the wonderful stage when they are bright and new, no, I know all to well how the fire burns away, the smoke is left, the mess, the mud comes into the laces and the webbing, the padding compresses. I’m just me, again, for another year.
What will I do with me?
I made a list: work, exercise, write, read, clean, organize, and balance.
Without the filler words, the specificity to ground the list, the ambiguity could be a cliche new years Hallmark.
Good luck with all the same goals year after year, at the end you’ll still need to work, exercise, write, read, clean, organize, and balance. And next year you’ll still be you, but older. Happy New Year!
I guess I’ll have to just try it out to see what 30 feels like doing the same stuff over and over. Maybe without the false hope of wonder and excitement and magic I can accept the mediocrity and solitude of my life.