Ah, resolve.

I made New Year's resolutions last year. So, end-of-year check-in: did I meet them? Well, yes and no. I didn't tithe 5% of my income to charity, I'm pretty sure, though I'll have to do my December accounting to make sure, but I beat out the previous year's 2% by quite a bit, so I improved. And I didn't run two miles by the baby's birthday, but I managed it by mine, so that's okay too. Of course, I've since slacked off and am back where I started, but there were extenuating circumstances.

So, same resolutions this year, plus one: to spend the 2.5 hours I have between work and the Squid's bedtime media-free. No telly. No video games. No computer. Just me and my family, spending time together. I've gotten Himself to concur, and I think this will be really good for us as a family, really good for me as a mother, and good for my relationship.

I'm also hoping to outline a novel and rate my entire music library, but I really think three resolutions is enough for a single year - the other stuff will just be bonus if I get it done, because I am tired of cramming my life full of so many things that I set myself up for failure. This year I am going to work on prioritizing things and doing the essential stuff well, and the less essential stuff as well as I can. Satisficing, if you will.

I am wishing all of you the best of New Years - Year of the Rat, this year, which I hope does not foreshadow anything about the coming elections - and may you be as happy as you know how, and even happier.

Language acquisition is hilarious

Himself let out a loud fart as we were all sitting together on the sofa.

I looked over at him in dismay.

"Nice," the Squid said.

Interesting side effects of not being depressed, or, extreme navel-gazing

I am a little afraid of this okay person I am. I mean, I feel like myself again, very much so. I feel more okay and alive than I have in a long time. That is all to the good.

But I am so very flighty and distractable.

I have always been flighty and distractable, so this is not precisely new. But for almost half a year now, I have been so...grounded. I have gotten almost everything I needed to do done, and usually well, on time, efficiently. I liked it. I literally said to people, "This is the person I have always wanted to be." I usually followed that up with, "So why am I so unhappy?" but in some regards, I meant it. My poor time management and lack of focus have been, after my depression, the two things that have had the largest negative impact on my life. And I had finally licked them.

And now it turns out that I have not learned and grown into my better self after all. It was just bad brain chemistry.

I can feel the chaos creeping back in. I had friends over to decorate the tree this weekend...and had planned so poorly that we barely got the tree up before they had to leave. I have overdrawn my bank account and paid overdraft fees for the first time in possibly years. I have not mailed my holiday cards. I spent a large portion of my last two work weeks surfing the internets and writing short fiction. I discovered last night when I went to pick up the takeout that I have lost my bank card. I discovered this evening when I came home that I had "stored" the leftover takeout in the sink overnight. (?!) I blew off a deadline four days ago that I still have not met, and I almost don't care. I have not kept up my daily charts/lists of things to do.

Even the happiness is not an unmitigated blessing. I have a friend who wrote that when she got off methadone and felt like herself again, she talked too much too fast too loud, laughed too brightly. I can see myself doing it - I talk too loud, move too fast, and I wander abruptly in and out of conversational topics, but I can't stop it. I said "shit" twice in meetings today. I laughed and talked more than anyone at the company holiday party. I have always been afraid that I am a little too much, and now I am more of myself. It unnerves me.

Is that the choice, then? Grim, anxious efficiency versus breezy ditziness? The feeling that if one small thing goes undone, I will crack and fall apart and everyone will see, versus being a flaky, cheerful, inefficient person?

I don't want to have to choose. I want to be happy and competent at the same time. This is not fair.

...And I spent enough time writing this that I had to stay late at work to finish what I needed to do, and couldn't to go to the gym after all. Case in point.

So, my friend J called me a few days ago. "Are you okay?" he asked. "K and I have been worried about you."

Oops.

The good news - the great news, even - is that I am okay. I am really, actually okay for the first time in months and months - the new medication seems to be working out fairly well (the side effects are minimal, if undesirable) and I feel like myself, which is an enormous relief. My therapist said when I saw her last week, "Wow, I've never seen these parts of you!" (And no, you perverts, I had all my clothes on. Geez.)

So that's awesome. That's beyond awesome.

It's also left me a little scattered - between suddenly being able to enjoy my time with the Squid and Himself, there's holiday stuff going on, and we went on vacation for a week, and things a work are a little off-n-on - somehow it's harder for me to manage my life consistently these days. You'd think it would be easier now that I'm feeling better, but the loss of my grim, high-anxiety functionality approach to life took some of the functionality with it. So no Squidbits this month, and I'm sorry I didn't say sooner that I'm doing okay.

In the meantime, let me offer you a YouTube playlist of something that makes me happy. I love it that these people exist. And that they do this. I mean, they all have a hat out for cash, but I have a feeling that the ability and drive to do this originates from a place of pure joy.



Street tap. Watch to the end if you have time; the final guy taps in wooden geta, those Japanese sandals that have wooden blocks in the center. Fucking amazing.