Because some friends did, I made a year-in-review video of our family activities, just to share with family and closest friends. I can’t post it here, but I can report that my daughters are gorgeous and growing up too quickly, my husband is hilarious, and despite my constant nagging suspicion that I am doing everything wrong we have an awful lot of fun and get around a surprising amount.
This gives me hope — after the revelry, January be can a gloomy time of year. But apparently I have been wrong just about every January, and life turns out to have a shocking number of awesome moments.
A chronic depressive for much of my life, I approach new years and new days with no small amount of dread. Only in the last year did I learn a little trick, to make a conscious effort to identify things to look forward to in the short- and long-term. These will be on the full-year calendar just to the left of my desk, to cheer me on.
Here’s what I’m expecting to put on my 2013 highlights reel a year from now, whether on video or just in my head:
— more sessions with my personal trainer
— Broadway Songbook concerts at the Ordway
— seeing Violet and the rest of the Shakespeare Youth Theatre troupe in Julius Caesar
— a trip to Harry Potter World in Orlando and to Ft. Myers
— meeting up with friends from all over in Reno
— visiting with my mom at her lake house rental
— camping all around Minnesota
— the Minnesota State Fair
— finishing a book project
— going back to the Black Hills
— getting visits from friends overseas
— throwing a 100th birthday party for our house
— throwing a 50th anniversary party for Dr. Who
— biking all over the place
— teaching a class for the first time in a long time
— surprises
Our surprises were the best parts of 2012: that trip to Europe was totally unexpected and nothing we could have pulled off without many many stars aligning. The gathering of PG friends last spring was an event I still can’t believe we pulled off. And we never know when we’re going to get more visitors — all I know is that we seem to have more than anyone else. Everyone on Twitter seems to be quoting Neil Gaiman today, and his New Year’s wish for this year seems especially appropriate.
In the spirit of the ongoing Christmas season, I would only add, may we all have the grace to say yes to the surprises we receive.
What Real World? 