Happy New Year, Please

I didn't even have the energy to see it in theatres.

There was no Christmas newsletter letter this year, because I could not save up enough hope from the past 10 months for holiday-themed writing. This year was the darkest one yet for me. And I really thought I already had a couple doozies under my belt. My youngest brother killed himself, and my mother's beloved passed away. Grief casts such a long shadow that I feel pity for all the good agents with the misfortune of meeting my murky countenance this year: the release of Step Up 3D, for example, joining my strip aerobics dance class's first performance ensemble, and, of course, my Beloved asking me to marry him. The lows were so low that the highs only gave me enough air to go back under water.

Some years have taught me that we are stronger than we think we are, but this year, I learned that everyone has a breaking point. Several of you, eight dear readers, are unflagging optimists, and I love you for it. You may say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and everything happens for a reason - on your blog.

This has always been a pragmatist's blog. I will say that a healed bone was indeed once a broken bone, and thanks to many who must have read the mental illness posts, 2011 has a chance to be the best year yet.

Loving Yourself

Today, I can stick a finger in the waist of my fat pants.

After months of calorie counting and many more months of sort of working out, I think I learned something about self-loathing. I think self-loathing is punishing yourself for being you, when you don’t think you’re good enough to love as you are. When I would skip working out for weeks, because I’d skipped once, it was because I’d written myself off as a failure, like an abusive parent or something. I thought I’d slipped down some slope and might as well free fall to its depths.

What does it mean to love yourself? I asked, and you answered:
“Loving yourself means believing you have value and worth and deserve respect and compassion. It means truly hoping for the best for yourself.”

“Maybe ‘tough love’ is good self-love: pushing yourself to excel, and rewarding yourself for a job well-done. Or maybe just being comfortable in your own skin.”

“I think the practice of Love should be the same for yourself as it is for others. …Do you want only the best for your best friend and believe they shouldn't needlessly suffer through judgment- always.”

Loving yourself, I hypothesize, is acknowledging that you’re on a walk, so that when you trip and fall, you get up and keep going. You are not scaling a deadly mountain grasping for approval at its peak! One day, uh, many days, I’ll eat way more than my calorie budget or say a nasty thing I didn’t mean. The next day, I should refocus on eating right and speaking love, because I still believe in myself like a loving parent.

Soon enough, I'll be able to stick two fingers in my fat pants.

A Love Song for Every Girl

This song was written for the children of Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy For Girls in South Africa, but I've put it in the queue of lullabies to memorize for my unborn daughter. Hope you pass along to every niece, daughter, sister, girlfriend you know. It's "Beautiful Flower" by India Arie.

Searching for My Solemate

Once upon a time (about 3 weeks ago), I designed the perfect blue shoes in my mind, safe where no one could see them. One day, I decided I was ready for the bright blue suede pumps of my dreams to brighten my mournful winter suits. I went searching for them in every shoe store in Atlanta's retail forest. At DSW, all the blue shoes were patent leather. At Macy's and Bloomingdales, inkblot/navy was the closest color available to bright blue. The mall shoe stores had blue flats and boots and open-toe stripper shoes, but no work-appropriate pumps.



I found two pairs of blue shoes at Neiman Marcus, the Manolo Blahniks from Sex and the City and the latest satin d'Orsay heel from Christian Louboutin - too well-known and not a good fit respectively, and both cost about $900. I went on and on and grew more disillusioned at every stop. "All shoe-makers are jerks!" I declared to anyone who would listen.

Weeks later, I was looking - again with no success- for a new briefcase. I'd spilt tea and food all over my bag that day. Then, half an hour before the mall was to close, an effortlessly fashionable woman passed in my peripheral vision wearing BLUE SUEDE HEELS! They were an enigmatic shade of grey-blue, I observed, as I chased her down in my own heels yelling "Hey, Girl-with-the-hot-shoes!" She got hers a year ago, she said, BUT had seen a similar pair at Zara a month ago. With only minutes left before closing, I ran upstairs to Zara and scanned the store for blue shoes. Seeing none, I grabbed a sienna suede pump and thrust it at a sales associate: "I just saw a girl with shoes like these in blue! She said she got them here!" (I fictionalized a bit. She wanted to know what I wanted, not my life story.) She went to the back and pulled out one of only 2 pairs left, the one in my size. MY SIZE!


I'm sure there are other blue shoes out there that I would love, but this pair makes me happy and were about $80. The moral of the story is that you never find love when you're looking for it, but be ready to seize opportunity and it will come. Alternatively, start your own blog, and no one can stop you from writing about shoes. THE END.

Hope for Future Family, from Mom

Sometimes, coming from a divorced family, I wonder whether knowing what NOT to do will be enough to build a strong, loving family of my own, or if I'm doomed to repeat history. Recently, my mom heard one of my brothers weeping in his sleep and woke him up. He said he was dreaming about this one Christmas when we were all together and happy with our toys by the tree.

My mom told him, "No need to be sad about the family you don't have anymore. Even the happiest families' children grow up and leave the nest. Change is natural. But you'll have your own family one day, and you can make your traditions just how you like them, and you can fill your house with love just like in your dream."

Here's a pic of that family we miss. (Click it to enlarge.)

But y'know, I love the family I have, and here's looking forward to the family I'll start someday.