Worthwhile resolutions: 2009 and 2010

I don't usually start thinking about New Year's resolutions until well after Christmas, but this year I'm starting early.

It seems like 2009 was a crap year for everyone. It certainly had its ups and downs for me. But it's coming to an end, and I have high hopes for 2010. A new decade. A full year with a toddler, not a baby anymore. I'm employed and we are certainly more comfortable financially (not to say we're real comfortable; we've gone from "freaking out" to "okay for the moment").

So let's think about resolutions to make the new year better.

First, let's revisit last year's resolutions. I'll copy-paste:

1. Continue writing.
2. Be more adventurous, less shy, more confident, less timid.
3. Read, if not 50 books, as many books as possible.

Okay, starting with number 3. 50 books was a stretch for someone who regularly reads long-ass novels. But I have read 37 books and am working on the 38th, although whether I'll finish it by the end of the year is questionable (it's Dostoyevsky, nuff said). For those interested in a list of books I read this year, they are here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1846816-miranda?shelf=read-in-2009

I read some good ones. The ones that really stand out for me are Black Boy, Roots, Beloved, and Cold Mountain. Guess I'm a sucker for a long, sad novel.

Resolution Numero Dos really ended up happening, which is kinda surprising. I've become comfortable with this city. As a tutor, I regularly navigate it by myself to get to my students. I'm constantly meeting new people that way. I'm still shy (always will be), but my timidness has really fallen by the wayside, mostly out of necessity due to my job.

I also joined a meet-up group for Brooklyn moms, and have made a couple of good-acquaintances-almost-friends.

And Téa is a social butterfly, so that has forced me to socialize with people on the train, at the playground, in stores, etc. Now that she knows the word "Hi," there is no stopping her. She loves people and most people respond to her in a very positive way.

So that just leaves the first resolution. Keep writing. Cue the "wah-wah" music.

I mean, I haven't stopped writing altogether, so that's a plus. But as you all know (pff, I'm saying "you all" like there are people besides my sister and my husband who read this), I only update this blog occasionally. I update my LJ more frequently, but I don't really consider that real writing. I *barely* consider this blog real writing.

Okay, so I made a start in 2009. For 2010, however, I'm pushing myself just a *teensy* bit more.

On LJ, there is a community called "Get Your Words Out." Basically it forces its members to pledge to write a certain (very high) number of words in a year. Like NaNoWriMo, but a whole year instead of a month. I have pledged to write 200,000 words in 2010. What "counts" encompasses anything creative (fiction, poetry, etc), and essays that are non-school-related.

This is going to be a challenge to me, since writing can't really take priority over being a wife and mother and tutor, but I'd like to try to make it a priority over reading. Despite the challenges, this seems like the perfect year to do this, since I'm not working full time, and I'm not in school.

So, goal one for 2010: Write 200k words.

Hope and despair

It's been almost a year since I started this blog, and it seems like it's kind of petered out. Have I run out of things to say, or am I holding myself to too high a standard?

I found this community on LJ, which lets you pledge to write a certain word count in a year. The lowest is 100k words in one project. I want to do this. I don't know what I'd write about or even if I'd share my writing with anyone, but I want the practice. I used to be a writer. I want to be a writer again. Maybe I'll just shoot for a short horror story or something.

More on that later, perhaps.

Another horoscope:

"Indignation is one of the most rewarding of emotions," writes Theodore Dalrymple, "as well as one that automatically gives meaning to life . . . There is nothing like irritation to get the juices circulating and the mind working." Of all the ideas that have made me irritable and indignant in recent weeks, this one steams me the most. I disagree so completely that I am practically beside myself with paralyzing rage. And as I plunge my attention further and further into his ridiculous proposal, I feel the tension coursing through my body. I sense my mind becoming swampy, my perceptions distorted. There's a good chance that I am inducing in myself a state of stressed-out stupidity. Please don't follow my example, Aries. It's possible that sour fury could be useful to you at other times, but right now you should avoid it. If you want your intelligence to work at peak efficiency in the coming days, you'll need long stretches of tender, lucid calm.

Totally agree with the quote. Irritation is basically what I run on, as my husband will attest. At times it does give me a lucid attention and a kind of gumption to get things done. But at other times, it does mire me in a "state of stressed-out stupidity." I think lately I have been falling into the latter category more often. Stressed-out stupidity kind of defines my 2009 experience, actually.

So, calm. Yeah. I'll work on that.

Speaking of stress, my sweet, laid back, well-behaved baby has become a toddler. On the one hand, I'm enchanted by this upright, fast-moving, curious little girl with her expressive face and her adorable little "Hi!". On the other hand . . . She's a toddler. With all the trappings: She's easily frustrated, stubborn, and often teething, makes a giant mess, gets into everything that's not nailed down, and has boundless energy. And I continue to worry that I'm not doing right by her. Plus the teething-related sleep deprivation has turned me into a useless zombie.

I've become jealous of everybody who is not me. Several weeks ago, I started writing a post enumerating the many people I am jealous of. Let me copy-paste:

• People who are in grad school
• People who get married before they have children
  
• Women whose pregnancies were planned
• Women whose husbands are excited about having additional children
  
• People who are financially comfortable (not rich, but not struggling)
• People who are still in college
• Women who had real, traditional weddings
• People who own houses
• People whose babies sleep through the night

I often wish I could go back in time and have a talk with myself a couple months shy of two years ago. I don't know if I would have come to a different decision about my pregnancy, but it would have been nice to be informed of the repercussions of my decision. Here was my understanding of my choices:

1. Have an abortion, and regret it my entire life.
2. Have a baby, and ultimately be glad I made the choice, but possibly grieve over my life being so changed.

In a nutshell, #2 is correct. I never expected, however, that motherhood itself would come with so many mixed feelings. I thought I would love my baby, take to mothering very well, and have a happy little dyad. I do love my baby. But it's so much more complicated than I could ever have known.

I wish Anthony and I had had more time together. I wish I'd had a proper relationship with him, a proper marriage proposal with a ring, a proper engagement, a proper wedding. A proper honeymoon. I wish we weren't struggling. I wish I could get a full-time job without the headache and expense and worry that comes with finding quality daycare. I wish Anthony could have been happy about finding out I was pregnant. I wish I could have been happy about it. I wish I could have spent my pregnancy excited, reading a hundred baby books, buying a hundred toys and outfits, dreaming about the little bundle of joy to come. Instead I was dirt-poor, worrying about bills, totally indifferent to the bundle of joy and trying not to think about it. And sometimes I even look back on that part of my life with nostalgia, because it's even worse at times, now.

One of my biggest problems is how Téa has impacted my relationship with Anthony. It's just a psychological dynamic that we were totally unprepared for. Whenever she does something to annoy him, I take it personally and I feel like he's annoyed with me, because I made her. And then I feel guilty for ruining his life. Basically, whenever he is unhappy or stressed out (which is all the time), I feel guilty.

Guilt pretty much runs my life, honestly.

I didn't mean to make myself cry, here. I didn't mean to ramble this much.

I guess I do have things to write about.