Five years ago, I wrote my first xanga entry. It was the one year anniversary of having birthed a 9 pound baby girl who refused to emerge from the womb even after 42 weeks of living there. It was the one year anniversary of meeting my zen baby, who breastfed like a pro as oon as she was born, and slept with me that first day and night and every day thereafter. It was the one year anniversary of being a second time parent who had finally learned that the small stuff really was small stuff. It was the one year anniversary of falling so madly in love with another human being that it makes my eyes tear even to this day.
I knew that my second baby would be my last. What I didn't know is that my second baby would always be my baby, and that birth order, on its own, really would make me treat my children differently.
What I didn't know is that, on the sixth anniversary of falling in love with her, I'd still stare at her and kiss her while she sleeps. I didn't know that my life would be incomplete without her huge hugs. I didn't know that the sound of her voice and her laugh would still make my heart dance.
That sentence, which began the Neighborhood Ball last night, lit up my heart.
Yesterday was a good day. It was cold and I worked a long day, but it was a day that seemed illuminated with hope and youth and dreams and a sense that the world could unite as one. It was a day of happiness, a day where I watched a young family fulfill a dream. I watched two little girls, close in age to my own, shine brightly on an international stage. I watched a smart, successful, poised and beautiful family instill hope in millions.
And the day ended for me with that simple, heartfelt line. The most powerful man in the world wanted everyone to know that his wife is a babe and that he knows his wife is a babe.
Political beliefs aside, things don't get much better than that.
I know that my days of regular blogging are long past, but I still want to blog. Even if no one reads it. I think I was less angry when I was blogging regularly. Or perhaps I was just less angry when I was younger.
I always struggle this time of year. I don't think i struggled with the holidays in my younger, Jewier years, when the Christmas/Hanukkah season meant new socks and a $10 watch, followed by dinner in a Chinese restaurant and a movie on Christmas Day. There weren't any expectations because, well, there weren't any expectations.
But now, having been part of a multi-religious family for some time, I feel the stress of the holidays. The stress isn't self-imposed so mush as external. The mad rush of people knocking over my kid when I'm trying to buy a box of band-aids at Target, the people piling goods into their arms when I'm trying to smell lotions with my kids at Bath & Body Works -- these all create huge amounts of stress. I've tried to brush it off by doing all of my shopping online, but I'm still surrounded by it everywhere I go. Adding to that is the stress of my increasing conservatism. When I read interviews of people who say how they're struggling this year and don't know if their houses will be foreclosed, so they've cut their Christmas spending down from $1000 a person to $600 a person, the aneurysm that I'm sure is lodged in my left temple throbs. I am lucky to have a good job and no current financial woes. I get that, and I do not take that for granted for even a minute. But we had our period when I had $100,000 in student loans and we were making $17,000 a year, and you know what? Our Christmas was limited to $20 each and we ate a lot of BOGO spaghetti. So while I'm not one of those liberals who grow up, make money, and think that paying taxes is anti-American, I also think people need to help themselves first. This is the same way I think that companies who made their money selling gas guzzling cars that are sub-par to every Honda I've ever owned should have to pay for their executive decisions and not demand that I bail them out. I pay ridiculous sums of money to the federal government every year, and I want that money to go to something or someone that matters, and not to fund the next Escalade.
Lifetime
