Here we are, the start of another year. I'd like to tell you about all my goals and resolutions, but that would be the easy thing. Yes, I'm exercising twice a week, practicing an hour a day, and trying to spend 15 minutes with God each day. For someone who functions on lists and goals as much as I do, resolutions don't mean all that much. What I want to do this year is live a little.
About half of 2014 felt very much like we were still in survival mode. We had this mantra when Cara was born that we used just to make life livable with two little kids and being in a constant sleep-deprived fog. The mantra was, "Just call it a day." Call it a day and order takeout. Get it delivered. Hire someone to clean it, fix it, anything just do get clean clothes on our backs, food on the table, and help us maintain healthy children that are generally not screaming or bleeding. We were probably bleeding money. I look back on some of the photos from earlier this year and literally have no memory of anything. It's like I am just now stepping out of a very foggy time where deep emotions existed (joy, frustration, fatigue, exhilaration?) but I have no idea what I did every day.
I made a big change this year. Halfway through the year, I was asked to step into a new role for an arts non-profit that I've worked for for five years. This meant putting the kids in full-time care for the first time. We had also just moved into a new house, another big change, and it was a sudden blessing to have a little extra income to put towards all the expenses. So I jumped in, and although our daycare plans were a little complicated at first, the work settled into something that I generally am loving - managing our staff, organizing events, writing grants, brainstorming strategy on how to advance classical guitar in the United States. I am really proud of our organization, and it is showing me that it is possible to combine all my years of training in a particular art form with the administrative skills that I discovered I developed ever since my earliest days in student council. Combined with part-time teaching and any practicing and performing that I can get in on the side, and I am getting a more varied and interesting career than I had thought I would ever get when I had my sights set on being a university professor. The other day, I saw a job posting come up for a full-time gig at a community college in LA, something that everyone who I graduated with at USC will probably apply for, and I realized that I am not at all interested in teaching a bunch of freshmen how to play an E chord. It feels like trying to fit a square peg into a hole. When I step back and think about it, I have somehow ended up with the most impactful work I could think of in my field, with flexible hours, and allows me to work from home part-time, have lunch with my husband, and pick up my kids every day. It is a blessing.
The girls are changing so much lately. Over the holidays, I've gotten to spend some extra much-needed time with them and they with each other. They've got a rhythm now. They love each other and expect each other. They are used to each other's noise, crying, whining, tantrums, and laughter. They don't know what it is like to not exist with each other. Like many families, we have been hit with a bout of sicknesses in these "winter" months, mostly minor colds, but some that seemed a bit worse over Christmas week. The past three days, both girls seemed to have something different - E with a mild fever, cough, sore throat and runny nose; C with a runny nose, irritated by her incoming molars, and a seemingly upset stomach. Today, C was back to her normal cheerful little self, but I kept E home from preschool so she wouldn't spread her cough (home-diagnosed as strep throat) to her friends at school, and she seemed at a loss of what to do without her sister. She kept asking to pick up C from daycare before it was pickup time, and seemed to find the house eerily quiet. We went out and even did an errand together. She picked out a small craft from Target to do at home, and though it was reminiscent of old times when it was just me and her a lot, it didn't feel right. We talked about C's favorite jokes and songs, and decided we missed her, picking her up from daycare a bit early just cuz.
Right now, my heart is so full and my body so drained. I am thankful that for now, E is recovering nicely, and that today, just today, C's skin is fair and not blotchy or red from her eczema, her curly hair in three cute pigtails courtesy of the daycare teachers, and her belly full from food that she endeavored to feed herself with a spoon at dinner (big deal). Our house got cleaned today, and in a flash, it is a complete mess again. And yes, this is the year, I have decided, that I am going to cook better, treat my body better, rest my mind and spirit better, love my husband better, and live bigger and louder. I'm feeling an appetite to do everything that I can with everything that I have, whether or not the house is a mess.
