A couple years ago as we were heading toward the end of the year, I saw a meme that said something like, "Do something new. Don't just live the same year over and over for 70 years and call it a life." That hit me like a gut punch. I have been living in the same house this whole decade, raising three boys as a stay-at-home parent, accumulating stuff, not building a resume, and not earning a paycheck. I often feel like I'm living in Groundhog Day, and not necessarily in the fun, funny way. If any stage of my life could be described as "in the thick of it", it's right now. Parenting is so much thicker than I ever expected.
So over the last couple weeks of the twenty-teens, I reflected on how I spent the decade, using my favorite method of doing most things: a giant list. You might want to take stock as well, especially if you, like me, sometimes feel like your friends are doing more interesting and exciting and rewarding things than you are.
You'll probably realize that you've done more than you thought, and here's the most important part:
it's ok if most or all of them are just regular things. We can't all be Greta Thunberg.
(Also, hallelujah for digital pictures, because without my photo files I would not have remembered a lot of these things.)
I had a kid.
When the decade started, we had two boys, which felt like maximum capacity. But around 2012, I started telling Matt that I thought number three was floating out there somewhere, waiting to come to our family and bring balance to the force. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. He's been delightful and easygoing from the start and has brought me so much joy.
Before having him in 2013, however, I had a miscarriage that brought me a lot closer to death than I'd like to experience again any time soon. Also, Theo came fast, and I had him
without an epidural. That was some real, intense living, but not the kind I hope to repeat in the 2020s.
I read 192 books.
This isn't a gigantic number compared to some of my friends who read 50+ books per year. But it's huge for me, since I spent the 2000s having basically forgotten that reading brings me a lot of joy. I'm so glad for that friend who said to me around 2008, "You should come to book club."
Speaking of books, in this decade I read the whole Harry Potter series out loud to my two older kids. It was one of the very best parenting experiences of my life. It was pure joy, in spite of that time when we were nearing the end of book six, and Mason picked up book seven, flipped idly through the first few pages, and called out, "Dumbledore dies?!?"
I fell hard core in love with Hamilton.
During the winter of 2015-16 I got a Spotify account so that I could listen to the original cast recording, then realized nearly a year later that I had paid about $120 in monthly subscription fees to listen to the same 40 songs over and over again. I should've just bought the CD set from the start and saved a hundred bucks. I have easily listened to that album a couple hundred times, and I could sing the whole thing through with few mistakes. I saw the show twice: once in Chicago with my sisters, and once in Austin with Matt and our friends. I also spent a delightful evening at a bar doing the whole show karaoke-style with a bunch of other Ham superfans, including my friend Janell, who I like to think of as my first convert as I spread the gospel of St. Lin Manuel-Miranda.
I celebrated a big sports thing.
When the Chicago Cubs clinched the National League pennant, I stood on my parents' front porch, banging pots and pans, crying, laughing, and yelling with my dad and the whole neighborhood. Seven games later, I was group texting with my parents and siblings, spread out across Illinois, Texas, Utah, and North Carolina, as the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in over a hundred years. It was incredible. We still text youtube clips to each other every November 2.
I knocked on doors for a candidate.
I majored in political science in college, so it's not like this was some radical thing to do. But I'm happy to say that I am paying closer attention to what happens in the world, reading about issues more carefully, and engaging respectfully when I disagree.
It broke my heart when Beto lost his Senate race, but it was such a good feeling to support a truly decent person. There is more door knocking in my future.
I went to some new places and revisited some old places.
No extreme adventures, no international flights, no lounging in paradise for days on end. But I have shown my kids a few more corners of the country, bonded with family, and caught up with distant friends. The past two summers, we have done a big road trip, which is exhausting and fun and a perfect example of the axiom "joy costs pain".
Since my parents, one sister, and a lot of my extended family are in the Chicago suburbs, that's where I've traveled the most, probably almost 20 times in the past 10 years. (Thank you, Southwest Airlines, for direct, cheap airfare!)
I've driven hours across Texas to visit Lubbock, San Antonio, Dallas, Corpus Christi, and Houston, plus I've been to Louisiana, North Carolina, Denver, Santa Fe, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Uinta National Forest, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma, Kansas City, St. Louis, and the Indiana Dunes.
I grieved.
I lost my grandpa, plus someone that I consider a bonus grandpa, and an aunt. Each of them were sad experiences, but as a result I spent some really good family time remembering their lives.
I held our family dog, who was my first baby and the literal Best Dog the Universe Has Ever Created, as she was put to sleep. It's an incredibly heavy thing to be the one to decide when a life ends. I think it was the worst day of my life. It was definitely the most tears I've ever cried in one day (though if you read my
Star Wars review yesterday, you might be like, "Are you sure about that?"). Just typing about it is making me emotional.
When I leave this world someday and reunite with all my people, I am going to spend a good amount of time with each of them and then sneak off for a couch nap with my Izzie girl.
I made a lot of things and did a lot of things.
I made jewelry, a couple quilts, photo books, cards, Christmas ornaments, paintings, furniture makeovers, Halloween costumes, a ton of soups,
a ton of bread, and way too many cookies.
I've sung karaoke, gone to every museum I could, completed dozens of puzzles, spent countless hours hunting for vintage treasures in thrift shops, and built up a really nice succulent garden.
I've taken my kids swimming hundreds of times, been to the state fair, discovered that I can actually enjoy camping (in small doses and under the right circumstances), studied Spanish, and swung on a trapeze.
I volunteered with my church, my kids' schools, and our neighborhood HOA board. I encountered the
worst smell I've ever smelled as I helped muck out a couple of houses after a hurricane.
Oh! A huge change this past decade is that I got a smart phone. It's the best thing and the worst thing I've ever added to my adult life.
What's next?
In the decade to come, I expect to turn 50 and to send two of my three children off to college. One of them is already taller than me; I can't imagine what it will be like to have actual adult children. Maybe we'll move to a different house, a different city or even a different state. Or maybe we will stay here in our little one story house and pay off the mortgage and be boring suburban people forever. Our dog is 4 years old, so it's quite likely that he will not be with us ten years from now. My body will probably never work as well as it does right now, which is sobering, since I'm already annoyed at all the shoulder aches and leg pains and general old person stuff that is creeping in.
In the next decade, I hope to read more and scroll less, to travel outside of the US, to finally take a drawing class, and to find a way to write as a paying job. I hope to become someone who is on time more often, criticizes less, and tackles something big and intimidating.
Happy New Year, friends, and Happy New Decade!
