Urban Drool

"There's a certain comfort to living only in the present tense..."

My blog is definetely becoming less about the daily trials and strife of being a new mommy. For one thing, I am no longer a "new" mommy. In one more month my baby will be a whopping one year old. For another, I seem to want to write more and more about the transitions that I am making in my life as a whole, rather than sticking to the microcosm of my squdge.

Which is fine. I have always said that this blog is my own personal tool, and didn't want to restrict myself to writing within only certain set parameters.

So. An update for me about me that very few people other than me will read/care about.

-I have a job interview this afternoon

-I am attending an information night at my old college next week to find out what classes, training, money is involved with me getting a teacher's license

-I lost 2 pounds in the past 8 days and am sticking (pretty much) with my much healthier eating plan.

Not bad.

By February 1st I want:

-a job offer

-to have made a decision as to whether or not I can actually DO this whole going back to school thing

-to have lost 8 more pounds to make a total of 10 pounds for the first month of 2007

We shall see.

ps...adorable Christmas picture of my squdge to be posted later today.

Happy Happy everybody.

I feel as though I drifted through 2006, my only tie to the earth being my baby girl. The year ebbed and flowed around me, with wonderful things and horrible things and joyful things and terrible things drifting around me and occasionally smaking into me like pieces of happy happy driftwood.

I have never before been so out of control of my own life.

I had two goals in mind: bring my child into this world and keep both her and me alive.

All the other shit that happened around those two goals was just that: stupid shit.

2007 will be a whole new ball game.

If I am very stressed and very unfullfiled and unhappy with my life (which I am. truth be told, my remarkable relationship with my daughter and husband aside, I'm pretty fucking miserable) then I need to turn to the one person in my life who can change this.

Myself.

I am 3 days into a much healthier eating plan, and although it's probably psychological, I already feel better.

I have written to my old alma mater and requested literature on their part-time evening program so I can see if I can earn a teacher's license.

I spent 3 hours yesterday perusing classified ads, looking for a better office to work in for the next couple years while I earn said license.

I have worn one small thing on my body that makes me feel pretty every day this week. Even if I am always rushing in the mornings (which I always am) and even if I don't have time to put together a nice, coordinated outfit (which I rarely am able to do) I will try and wear one thing, just one thing every day to remind myself and the world that I am a pretty girl. Yesterday? A really pretty necklace the Boy got me for Christmas. Today? A really pretty hair scarf that almost makes my too-thick, out of control black cloud of hair look attractive.

2006 had me by the throat and tried to choke the life out of me. 2007 is never going to get that chance. Pardon my French, but I am going to slap 2007 to the fucking floor and make her my bitch.

Although I have a great deal that I think about these days, I seem to be incapable of putting anything into words.

Everything is so…intermingled lately. I am so joyous and so melancholy. So filled with light and also so very anxious and upset. It’s very confusing and it makes for a very disjointed stream of thought and thus, disjointed writing. But it remains that there is so much I would love to say, like:

how my Lucy has 8 teeth now. 8. And she likes to eat only adult food. How are the days of purred sweet potatoes and mashed banana already gone?

and although we bicker and sometimes act like a couple of snotty, cranky teenagers, my marriage to my Boy brings me such great fun and great joy.

and I hate my job and my boss more than I can express. And how filled with cold shock I was last Friday when she made the last minute decision to not give out holiday bonuses this year. So instead of the $1500 that I was told to expect, I have received nothing.

and how Lucy is trying so hard to walk on her own, and how much she loves the ladies at her day care.

and how I miss my sister so much. She is in Belgium until next June, and how her letters to me are growing more and more distant and cool and her phone calls and email less and less frequent.

and how much I love to see my good friend Nancy so in love with her awesome boyfriend. A single mom with a 7 year old kid and a lousy ex husband and a recently deceased father needs some good cheer, and right now she has it.

and how I need to leave this office and this horrible woman. And how crushingly disappointed I am that I have had several interviews at several law firms and been told by several nice people in charge that I am just “too qualified.”

and how secretly thrilled I am that although my Lucy wants to be a big girl and can understand a joke and shake her head when you ask her a question and knows how to play peek a boo and dances with perfect rhythm she still is enough of a tiny baby that she insists that I wrap her in a blanket and cuddle, rock and nurse her to sleep every night.

and how next year, all will be different. Next year, I will find employment at another office to keep the bills paid for the next 2 years while I prepare to do something totally different with myself.

I think I am going to go back to school part time and get a teacher’s license.

It is abundantly clear to me that I was NOT meant to work in the legal field.

I will go back to school so that one day I can get a classroom in a nice little middle school on some tree lined street somewhere and teach literature. Maybe they’ll even let me start up a Drama Club.

I’m also going to lose at least 40 pounds. 40. By this time next year, I will weigh at LEAST 40 pounds less than what I weigh right now. Because my child, my daughter, this amazing girl who will one day be an amazing woman who will be a part of my life for now and forever will NOT look at me and see unhealthy, out of control eating habits. Nor will she see me with such poor body image issues. She WILL see a healthy, happy and fit mom who thoroughly enjoys eating tasty, healthy, thoughtfully prepared food to nourish her body and soul. Because I no longer am free to do with myself what I wish. I now exist on this earth for someone else, too. And I won’t let her down.

This will be my last post of 2006. Have a great fucking holiday and I’ll see you in 2007!