December 22, 2008 | Filed under: It's Called "Having a Life." You Should Try It., People I Like Even More Than My Job, The Fam

Every weekday morning I wake up and think, “Fuck.”  It’s either “fuck, I can’t believe how tired I still am” or “fuck, I can’t believe how much work I have to do today.”  During these first few minutes, I have a crucial decision to make:  get up and go into work early (thus reducing some of my stress) or get up and go to the gym (a more effective stress-reducer, but less productive on the work front)?  Or say screw it, and go back to bed for another hour?  (I can tell you which choice hasn’t been selected much lately.)

On the weekends, I’m presented with a slightly different challenge. I generally don’t set the alarm, so I don’t generally complain about how tired I am on those days.  Instead, I lie in bed plotting what I’m going to do first. Go for a run! Clean the house! Go to church! Do laundry before other people are up! Go to Target before other people get there! Go to work before other people park near there! I’m a morning person, you see, and I know that prioritizing something at the beginning of my day means it absolutely, 100% will get done, which is why I’m up this morning telling you this – because my evening is already booked.

I don’t think I’ve been this excited to go home for Christmas since freshman year of college when Christmas break meant clean laundry and no homework and lots of time spent catching up with my high school friends. I’ve probably packed as many clothes for the game tonight as for the entire rest of the time I’ll be home over the holidays. Look, it’s an OUTDOOR EVENT in CHICAGO in DECEMBER — not exactly a balmy proposition. Not to mention that it’ll be NIGHTTIME and therefore even colder. The good news is, Emily and I went to the Ravens-Redskins game in Baltimore a couple of weeks ago and froze our asses off had a great time, so I’m well prepared for this endeavor. Sort of. If anything can prepare one for four hours in single degree temperatures mere feet from an inland ocean.  Look for me on ESPN — I’ll be the girl in the pink ski jacket trying everything she can think of to avoid turning into an icicle, including but not limited to dreaming about her nice, warm bed.

Yes, we are wearing two hats each. And two shirts. And two jackets.

December 11, 2008 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?

Him: So, your birthday’s this week.  Are you making a list?

Me: A list?

Him: Yeah, a list of things to do before you die.

Me: Um, you do know that I’m turning thirty, not sixty, right?

Nope, I haven’t made a list.  But if you’ll indulge me in this exercise of intense navel-gazing here (and damn it, you should — it’s my birthday!) I will take the opportunity to runimate on the last decade and what this particular milestone means to me. 

In many ways, I’m happy to leave behind my twenties. I feel so far removed from what it was like to be 23, that I can hardly believe I was considered a grown-up then and was allowed to have a job and own a car and sign an apartment lease. Who entrusted me with these responsibilities? And more importantly, WHY WOULD THEY DO SUCH A THING???

I am really OK leaving behind the heartache that came in my twenties, both personal and professional. I know I’m lucky, in that I can identify exactly two traumatic/ heartachy events that occured prior to turning 19, but the law of averages seems to have caught up with me in the last decade. I’m sure there’s more to come, but I have to think it’ll be spread out a little bit more. (Please?)

Thirty brings with it a mellower version of me, just like everyone said it would. To be clear, mellower does not necessarily mean less driven or less stressed, because on the whole I’m probably neither, but I’m more accepting of the fact that some things just ARE.  Sure, there are often ways in which things could be improved or maybe they’re not exactly the way I prefer, but there are only so many hours in the day and only so many brain cells to devote to such causes, that some things will just have to remain sub-par or imperfect or just the way they ARE because it’s too much trouble to change them. (Not-level bathroom counter that lets a pool of water collect in one corner which will evaporate and leave behind ugly scuminess unless I wipe it down with a towel every time I use the sink, I am looking at you.) These are the things that are no longer allowed to cause stress or use up brain cells.

I think — I hope — that I am more accepting of other people and their experiences, too. (Here’s where I turn the Cheese Factor up to 11…) It seems to me that Forrest Gump was right: you never know what you’re gonna get. We’re all shaped by our experiences, but few of us get to pick them. A decade ago, I didn’t know that I wasn’t going to law school. I didn’t know that today I’d be single and childless. I didn’t know that I’d take a three-year detour to California. I didn’t know I’d turn myself into a distance runner, hiker, skier. I didn’t know that I’d take a job so demanding and all-consuming that the entire range of personal life highs and lows, hopes for the future and unfulfilled dreams, baggage that could fill a cargo plane has to be compressed into a space the size and shape of a box from Tiffany’s. I didn’t know that I’d have firsthand experience with a box from Tiffany’s. I didn’t know that it wouldn’t work out with the person behind the box from Tiffany’s, but that I’d be OK anyway. Better than OK. Really good, actually.

I’m looking forward to my thirties.  There’ll be the slowing metabolism, expanding ass and dramatically less supple skin. Oh, wait — wrong list.  I don’t know what’s in store for me in the next year or the next decade, so in the meantime, what should I put on the list? 

* Almost.  Officially on Friday.  But we’re celebrating a day early at my office, so why not post here today, too?  Also, the stress-induced insomnia kicked in full force this week, so I’ve had several quiet hours during which to write. Lucky me.