ASK Musings

Alright. I’m 35, and I’ve decided that it will be awesome. It certainly started out that way. Last night I was greeted with macarons and some adorable tiny spoons. Today I took most of the day off of work and did a bunch of stuff I wanted to do. It was just lovely.

I also received some amazingly thoughtful gifts, especially ones from Austin. Items that I already adore, and that show me that he really knows me well. I mean, some are gimmes (cupcake wrapping paper? Obviously. Emergency cupcake? Even better.) But some – like finding a book of maps and statistics about London – are just beyond my comprehension of awesomeness. I’m a lucky woman.

I’ve said before that I do New Year Resolutions, but I tie them to my birthday. That way I have a couple of weeks to get a feel for the new year, what I want to do, and not be faced with anything drastic (like, say, cutting out all sweets unless it’s a special occasion, which starts tomorrow! Hooray!) during my birthday. I think there are a couple of big things I’m going to focus on between now and January 14, 2016 – finding more joy and being less anxious about what others think of me.

I’m betting the joy part is what will be more challenging. I think I’ve already got a healthy amount of it in my life, but I want to celebrate more things. I want to hang stupid paper hearts up around Valentine’s Day, and bake a cake when someone finishes a big project at work or pays off their student loans. I think it’s super easy to get caught up in the mundane to-do lists; hopefully this year I can get caught up in the awesome little things.

The other part might be surprising to some people, because outwardly I probably seem like I’m very willing to speak my mind on things. And it’s true, I am. But only when I feel really comfortable that I’m not going to ruffle the feathers of the people with whom I’m speaking. Other times I hold back, even though I know that what I want to say is what I believe in.

An example from the past week is the horrible shit that went down in Paris. I have complicated feelings about it (and I’m not going to get into now because it’s 10:30 p.m. and I’m still floating on the last strains of the Veronica Mars theme song after finishing the movie), but I’ve not felt comfortable sharing them here because I have this voice in the back of my head saying “what will people think?”

And the thing is, I do care what people think, and to a degree I think it’s disrespectful to not care about it. I loathe people who try to pass off being an asshole for just ‘not caring what other people think.’ I’m talking about feeling more comfortable about discussing things on this blog, or with friends, that might not fit what others are suggesting is the way to go, and that may not even be fully formed arguments. Sometimes I’ll be shown I’m wrong, and sometimes I won’t be. But I’ll be true to myself, and I feel that now is as good of a time as any for that.

So, here’s to being 35. I’ve got about 364 more days to figure it out.