Are we having fun yet?
I don’t know how you feel, but 2012 can’t end fast enough. It hasn’t necessarily been a bad year, but it’s been a hard one. Whereas New Year’s Eve makes me nervous and even a bit sad that the year didn’t live up to expectation, New Year’s Day makes me feel hopeful. Ambitious, even. And that’s when the trouble starts.
I recently asked my husband what he was going to do in 2013. I didn’t mean a list of resolutions, but a plan of some sort. What are you going to do this year? His short answer was “to lose 40 pounds…again.” His broader (no pun intended) answer was, “to stop making plans.”
Aha. Now there’s an idea.
Part of my disappointment this year has been linked to good intentions spoiled by things I couldn’t control. John Lennon is credited with the great quote, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”
So stop making plans. As one friend told me during a session of email therapy, “Go into situations without any assumptions and you’ll never be let down. In fact, you might even be pleasantly surprised by how things turn out.”
As I work through the last days of Christmas vacation, I realize that I wasted time with my family. I spent the first two days of holiday break in stores buying last-minute gifts to make Santa’s haul look even on both sides of the tree. I spent the next two days in a grocery store, the next two days clearing clutter from every flat surface in the house, the next two days caring for an ailing aunt, and the past two days worrying about all of the above. We had a nice Christmas, but it had a heaviness to it. Something just didn’t feel right.
Some years are like that. Not every holiday can be flawless. It’s just that we spend weeks — months, even — preparing for 48 hours of perfection, and when it doesn’t measure up to the fantasies in our mind…it’s an incredible deflation. But what did I expect, anyway?
Plan: I thought my husband and I would put the girls to bed early and we’d get the TV to ourselves to watch old Christmas movies.
Outcome: We never saw one minute of It’s a Wonderful Life.
Plan: Mike and I planned to sit in the front room, listen to Christmas music on Pandora, and watch the snow.
Outcome: It didn’t snow until last night, and I’m sick of holiday music.
Plan: Using my new cookbooks, I scratched out a great holiday menu of “red and green” lasagna, homemade bread, a Christmas salad with strawberries and pistachios, Red Velvet cake, and cranberry cocktails.
Outcome: We defrosted store-bought lasagna and ate on TV trays. The girls didn’t like anything but the bread.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing, I guess. But it wasn’t what I had in mind.
My computer’s spies must know what’s on my mind, because I keep getting pop-up ads for programs like “Overplanners Anonymous”. Can’t I just go with the flow?
After The Great Toy Sort of the season, I noticed that the girls didn’t really care who got what. They swapped stuff later in the afternoon. Ava played with Maryn’s dolls, and Maryn snagged Ava’s art supplies. They traded DS games and even shared some of the Barbie crap. (Yes, crap.) They looked at each other’s books and ooh’d and aaah’d over old school fun such as Magic Rocks and Sea Monkeys. They took turns shooting suction cup arrows through the house. They were content. I hardly know the meaning of the word. It sounds like something I should learn.
So as 2012 wraps up, our goal is to stay home and do nothing. In the past, I fought to keep the girls up until midnight so we could squeal “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and throw confetti in the air. Not this year. If they’re up, they’re up. No structure. No “But it’s New Year’s Eve!!” protests. We might go out for an early dinner to avoid the roads when Amateur Night kicks in. We might open a bottle of something bubbly. We might throw in a movie and let the countdown pass. Or, we might just go to bed and put 2012 behind us.
At least, that’s the plan.