Tag: Resolutions

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The lists we make.

I truly hate this time of year. Why?

  1. Cold.
  2. Taxes.
  3. Darkness.
  4. Seasonal affective disorder.
  5. General sense of foreboding and/or malaise.

Not to mention I’ve been having a real sad about the general state of the world, what with all the Russians and the dead kids and the golf-club-wielding-heads-of-state. After a flawed attempted at sharing peer-reviewed research on the internet, I’ve basically been hibernating and sulking about having to eat healthy and go to work in order to maintain my adulthood. I write things on my to-do list like “take a shower” and “eat breakfast”, not because there’s any real risk of me forgetting these things, but because goddammit, I need something to feel good about.

I’m a list-maker. I like making lists. I even have this quote hanging in my office that says, (paraphrasing, I forget the exact words) “Each day find three things you can do really well. Then, let the rest go.” Which is kind of the ironic anti-list list, because it’s like, hey, try to live more in the moment and don’t focus on making long lists to accomplish but do that better by making a SHORTER list. So meta.

Similarly, Wife will tell you that I have a favorite past time of turning EVERYTHING into a task to be accomplished or a competitive challenge. (See also– 30 day exercise challenge, read 50 books in a year challenge, write a novel in a month challenge, etc etc. ) It got so bad that my only new year’s resolution this year was to not do anymore time-based challenges. (Which I’m actually just realizing the irony of right now as I type this. hahaha.)

Nonetheless, I’ve been on this real death-and-terrible-things-inspiring-introspection podcast kick lately (see: Terrible, Thanks for Asking, This is Actually Happening, and Everything Happens). I’m not really sure how I got sucked into this genre, but it does seem to be a hit on iTunes lately. My best guess is that many of us are feeling a little unsteady in our world these days, and also the beautiful thing about these podcasts is that they’re just so human. But anyway, thinking and talking about death and dying smacks me in the face with a serious truth– all of our listmaking, goal achieving, weight-loss challenging, 30-days-to-a-better-you is based on the idea that there will be 30 more days. It is as much about “pacing yourself” to accomplish things as it is a prayer for the future. A hope and belief that you have more days. Just as I’ve always believed that (in many cases), regret about the last moments you had or did not have with someone before they died is as much about a last ditch effort to feel like we are in some kind of control as it is about the actual thing itself. That if only we had done this thing or that thing, we would feel better. We would feel less powerless.

I’m trying to make fewer lists and be more present, and more human, just like we’re all trying. (Or so I’ve decided to believe.)

But some days I still make lists. Because if making lists is a small prayer of hope for the future, some days I need a little hope. For old time’s sake:

Things I did to feel better about the state of the world in my 20s:

  1. Pretend/convince myself that I was a decent writer.
  2. Drink too much.
  3. Have politically charged arguments and believe I could actually argue my opponents into having common sense. (Okay, I still do this. Just with a little bit more ennui.)
  4. Try to feel superior about my awareness of independent/alternative cultural phenomena.
  5. Fling myself into any number of impulsive “life-affirming” projects which I was convinced were the key to everything, but really spend a lot of time analyzing the experience rather than experiencing the experience.

Things I do to feel better about the state of the world in my 30s:

  1. Make shorter lists.
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2018: Choose Your Own Adventure.

Happy 2018. I realize blogs aren’t a thing anymore.

Don’t even get me started about how everyone and their brother is doing a podcast or a video blog these days, and the only remaining “real” blogs are bankrolled by cooperate sponsors. Even if I had audio equipment, it would most likely be water damaged within a week. I have a brand new laptop I bought 8 months ago which I still have not even set up because I cannot figure out the quick start guide. Not to mention the power plug has 3 prongs, and all of the outlets in our house only have space for 2. I’ve always been a writer (mediocre at best), so this is the medium you get.

(Remember when the word “blog” didn’t even exist because we still used “web log”? Or when everyone had one to deposit their solipsistic ramblings alongside their MySpace Top 8? Or then they became completely obsolete like 3D doritos or fruit-shaped trix? Yeah, me neither. Asking for a friend.)

It’s not clear to me yet whether this will be a blog about a) two lesbians trying to make a baby, b) autoimmune disorder food allergy hell , c) the ironic attempts of behaviorist trying to train and raise a tiny, terrible Chihuahua, or d) the misadventures of a hapless-but-still-sometimes-useful child psychologist.

But, YOU, my four readers, will get a chance to find out. Let’s run down the options:

A) My wife and I want to have a baby. But we are both women. Apparently this makes us “functionally infertile”. Who knew? After a year of trying without success, we decided we should seek medical intervention. Note: we are not responsible adults. Coming into this marriage, we both had best friends who doubled as life coaches, whose entire job it was to prevent us from doing things such as, for example, purchasing a pig as a pet and digging a mud wallow in the backyard. Or to answer questions such as “Are cuddle duds a real thing?” (answer: They are.) or “We are stranded on a mountain in a blizzard in a Pruis with no preparations even though this is a totally predictable situation for a normal person; what do we do now?” (These are all real, non-ironic examples.)

B) After about 12 months of experiencing idiopathic nausea and vomiting, followed by severe upper abdominal pain, and then about upteen million medical procedures which were only slightly less unpleasant than the actual symptoms, I got diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Which, in case you didn’t know, is a highly unpleasant but mostly harmless autoimmune disease of the esophagus, usually triggered by food allergies. Generally, it’s no big deal, but it turns out I’m having a teeny tiny midlife crisis about this, because I’m tired of being sick all the time and it’s starting to make me feel like a failure. Also, I have to stop eating all of my favorite foods and basically any foods that would be considered “favorite foods” by anyone ever.

C) The adventures of Tiny Dog. He’s adorable, and awful, and as a behavioral psychologist it is a constant ego-check that I’m pretty terrible at training him.

D) In my spare time when I’m not at the aforementioned medical appointments (and it really is starting to feel like the minority of my time at this point…), I work at a children’s hospital as a psychologist with children with various disabilities and behavior challenges. This is an always fascinating, sometimes terrifying, hilarious, exhilarating, exhausting job. There are many moments each week when I think, “well, you just can’t make this shit up.” Obviously I can’t really write about it that much, because of confidentiality and respect for patients (Like I think, “if it were my kid doing something hilarious, would I want someone talking/writing about? Answer: ABSOLUTELY. But I’m clearly not the best judge of character.) But it’s not every day you discover a bat living in the sleep center of your office building (which I find highly ironic), or you are helpfully reminded of the wide array of things it is possible for children to swallow with no adverse effects whatsoever.

Anyway, choose your own adventure. Sally forth, 2018. You shall not defeat me.