The Best New Year's Eve Ever

John and I didn't really make "plans" for New Years.  Most of our friends were busy with other shindigs and being out of town and such, so we decided to lay low and have a pretty chill New Years Eve.  (Plus, I have determined that I am officially too old to do tequila shots, so it's probably for the best.)

But, we do have this New Years tradition we started a few years back that we needed to fulfill, so we decided to drop the baby over at Grandma and Grandpa's and head out for a nice dinner and ceremoniously toast the old year out and the new in while completing said tradition.  (Mind you, this is at 6:30pm.  Like I said....I'm old.)

Our tradition, which I have grown to love, is an idea we got from some book on relationships and adapted a little for ourselves.   Every New Years, we are each granted three wishes--they can be anything we want.  The intent behind these wishes is to focus ourselves on how we can better our relationship, and tell each other three things we wish would change or be improved upon.  Whichever of us is receiving the wish is not allowed to make any kind of judgments about those wishes.  We are required to remain as open-minded as possible toward each other, and commit to trying as hard as possible to fulfill that wish over the course of the next year.   Sometimes they are things that we wish the other person would improve upon, like "I wish you would be more open to watching movies with me".  But more often than not, they end up being things that we wish we could focus on together, like "I think we could both be better about making passive-aggressive requests to each other" or "I wish we would start being more conscientious about how wasteful we are".

So tonight we sat down at Prairie Fire restaurant in the West Loop, opened up our past New Years Wishes and reviewed how we did.  Then, while eating amazing food and the best dessert I've ever tasted in my life (Sticky Toffee Date Cake--holy sh*t I could die in that cake), we alternately gave our three wishes.  I don't know, maybe some couples would have conflict over something like this, but I can honestly say that tonight was one of the best nights of my life.  I felt more in love with John than at any other point in our marriage.  Being able to talk openly and honestly about what wasn't working quite right in our relationship and what we could do better, all with genuine smiles and laughter (and Sticky Toffee Date Cake) and not a hint of defensiveness, I mean that's AMAZING. 

After dinner, we came back home eager to...umm...consummate our wishes and officially ring in the new year.  If there is one thing I know about my life and what I'm doing right, it's this: my marriage rocks.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I am 29.

There is something strangely profound to me about this particular year of life.  Apparently so much so that I want to document it with this weird diary-blog thing that no one is going to read.

Unlike most people turning this age, I'm not freaked out about getting older.  I'm a little odd in that I kind of get excited about a new older age (presumably this psychosis is the result of having two older sisters and always wanting to be like them and do the things that older kids do).  So no, it's not a fear of aging. It has something to do with this uneasy feeling in my gut that--well--I don't know.  That I'm a little lost, but I shouldn't be.

I'm fairly certain I wanted to be something or somebody before I was 30.  It's such a momentous marker in life, shouldn't I have had a goal or milestone that I would be close to accomplishing by now?  What exactly, I have no idea...but something in me feels like I should be this Ms. Caroline X: The Accomplished Fill-in-the-Blank (or on the path to it at least).

What I do know is that I am not this Ms. Caroline X yet, and more importantly, I'm not sure who or what X should be when I finally hit the big 3-0.  It's still this unknown variable of my life that I've narrowed down a little, but still remains elusive and foggy.  I know a couple of things that it's not, but there are infinite possibilities of what's left that it could be.  It's maddening. And, as I would prefer to have a life with some kind of positive impact, I feel like the longer I take to figure out the Mystery of Me the less likely I will be able to make an impact, so I better freaking figure that out soon. I could be doing a whole lot of good right now, curing cancer or something. But noooo--I've got to be all conflicted and shit.

So here I am...writing so I can try and figure out the mystery of who Caroline should be at 30.

Getting Here

I came upon the idea to write about my year of being twenty-nine this past fall of 2010, after I quit my job. I had been working in theatre administration, and I was miserable. Why? Well, I couldn't quite figure that out (a common theme with me, you will soon see). It was a prestigious and glamorous job (well, not if you actually knew the day-to-day, but it sounded glamorous), I was good at it, I liked the people I worked with (for the most part) and they seemed to like and respect me (for the most part), and I loved the art of theatre. When I left college, I thought I would really enjoy theatre administration. And on paper, this job was someone's dream job.  Just not mine.

Maybe I would have been happy if I had been at a theatre other than where I was (there was A LOT of dysfunction there).  My job was a tremendous amount of stress that constantly made me ask "Is this really worth all this bullshit?" every day.  We had a board of directors that was indifferent and vain at best and morally bankrupt at worse; there was horrible pay and no benefits; but, most of all, it simply felt like a bad fit for me, like I was wearing the wrong sized shoes every day. Negativity and annoyances piled up day-in and day-out, and all the little ridiculous ironies became intolerable. I ended up crying (or screaming) almost every night, my health got worse, and my husband and friends noticed me becoming more and more downtrodden (and, though they wouldn't say it to my face, less fun...and ugly...it's true don't lie).

But for some bizarre reason, I kept with the job for years after starting to feel this way, thinking I was unhappy for no reason at all--just a youthful inability to tolerate "the real world". I should just get over it.  If I was tough enough, or "seasoned" enough, or a better person and willing to be martyred, I could eventually be successful and happy. Anyway, whatever it says about me or my reasons, in the end I simply knew that where I was was not where I wanted to be. And, more importantly, who I was was not who I wanted to be. So I quit.

During that first month of freedom, my month I refer to as "detox", I slept in, spent time with my family, and baked (a lot).  Knowing the Job Search was going to be close around the corner, I also worked myself into somewhat of a mental merry-go-round spinning out of control. Not about quitting (I've not once regretted that decision), but about the remarkably terrifying freedom of knowing that I could do ANYTHING, be ANYTHING, and that my life could go in millions of different directions from here on out. I could live my dreams. I could start over. How frightening.

At times this freedom was exhilarating, but more often than not it was simply paralyzing. Hmmm...what were my dreams? I'm lucky enough in that I've never felt severely limited by any personal or financial factors with what direction I could take my life, but one thing I have never been is focused and directed.  I've never been sure. This leaves me very commitment phobic about lifestyle choices (like careers).  I simply don't allow myself to have big dreams. I have unending jealousy for my friends who have known their whole lives (or close to it) that they wanted to be a doctor, a professor, a veterinarian, a teacher, whatever. Or the friends that, if they didn't know from birth, they were the type of person that figured it out with some sort of biblical epiphany and suddenly everything made all the sense in the world. "Of course! Why didn't I see that before? Astronomy IS my calling!"

Alas, that is not me.

When I'm faced with a situation like this, I feel like I'm back in high school having to figure out which college to go to, or in college having to decide what to major in. I go in circles.  Part of me is so excited by all the possibility.  "What fun!  I could do anything!"  That part quickly gets drowned out by the other part of me that just wants to scream, "I don't know! I'm not ready to make a decision like that! I have no idea how to even begin to make that judgment. This is going to effect the rest of my life! I like everything. Can't I just do everything?"  I feel like I'm inevitably going to base my decisions on poor information, a delusion of what I thought something was going to be like instead of its reality, and a lack of understanding about myself and the world. I feel ignorant and babyish and speeding toward a dead-end that might work--I can roll with it--but it won't be quite right. I might as well have just closed my eyes and pointed. I will be the perpetual square peg where ever I go.

So here I am. It's my twenty-ninth year, and I'm going to figure it out dammit. What will be my square hole in a world full of round ones?

In 365 days, I don't need to be enrolled in the graduate program of my choosing and on my way to becoming a professional something-or-other-with-a-defined-career-path. To be honest, I would be shocked if that's what happened. No, I just want to be securely pointed in the direction of my choosing, on a solid path with my canteen filled and bags packed, and ready for the first step of the next journey. If I'm going to be a nomad, then I want to know that I chose that and it's who I am and I'm happy with that. I need to make decisions--ones that I have refused to make up until now.  So, this is not just about a career. I mean, it's true that my career is the most glaringly open-ended part of my life right now, but it is not the only area in which I need to go back to the drawing board and review from scratch. I want to make sure my WHOLE life is the way I want it to be.

So, needless to say, this project of self-reflection is going to take some time (let's hope no longer than 365 days) and patience (got that) and perseverance (umm...needs improvement). But, if it lays the foundation for a fulfilling life (or maybe just a fulfilling decade), I'm willing to make the investment.

Deep Breath. Here we go...