Resolute
Ahso, the New Year. Hello 2009, Year of the Ox. Goodbye 2008, Year of so many Rats.
I am typically not one to do the whole New Year's resolution thing. I'm more of the "if I think of something I should be doing, or way I should change my life, I should just do it" type. The artificial start date of 01/01 is just not for me. However, I found myself scribbling down a few things:
- Chief among these is to save a great big wad of cash this year. I can do it, I need not trifles and trinkets that seems to squander away my pennies. I am talking major savings here, and I have a number written in bright and bold turquoise ink in my journal.
- Secundo, I shall not purchase coffee if I do not have my own mug. No Impact Man can do it, so so can I. Yes!
- 3rdly, I will excel at this Water Leaders thingamajiggy that I am doing.
There are more, but those are the ones I have chosen as my majors. The others are about staying in touch with some faraway friends, making gifts, doing a little more with my photography and artsy side (yes, even engineers have an artsy side). Numero Uno shall be judged by monthly savings, numero 2 shall be judged daily, and numero tres shall be determined at years end. So there is a good short-term, mid-term, and long-term span to the things I've committed to. Go me!
Everyone Else is Doing it...
Confession: I, like, really like Whole Foods. I know it's a totally yuppie schmuppie place, that many things are overpriced (though I dare you to find a cheaper can of kidney beans), that I don't really need to squeeze by aisles of stylish baby clothes when ALL I WANT IS MY SMELLY CHEESE, etc., but I DON'T CARE because theys gots good eats, and the smaller building is more my style than the fluorescent-lit hell that is Safeway.
But the reason I am confessing is this bit o' happy green news: EVERYONE leaving the store at the same time as me this afternoon BROUGHT THEIR OWN BAGS - like 6 other peeps! And the two ladies who I almost ran over on my sprint out the door, they too had brought their own bags. BRING IT ON TRENDY GREENIE FOLK!
Hey you Moms, Stop Apologizing for Being in My Way, Because You Aren't in My Way, And Even if You Were, It's No Big Deal!
Ok, here's something I have become very tired of: YOU MOMS APOLOGIZING FOR JUST BEING IN THE SPOT ON THE EARTH THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY OCCUPYING! STOP APOLOGIZING TO ME YOU ARE NOT IN MY WAY!
This has happened several times recently. Ergo, I am standing in line at the ticket counter in SFO, all blissed out because hotdamn I am going to Hawaii, and the mom in front of me, kid at knee, has finished her bizness with the counter lady. She is bending down and putting some probably important documents away, because after this moment her moments will belong to her chilren' and so she wants to stay orgamanized. Cool, put your stuff away, that's totally normal. We're all leaving SF at the same time in the flying steel can, yah? Well she looks up sees that there are people in line and SHE APOLOGIZES because she feels like she is in the way. Noooooo! You're just doing your thing.
And then again, at the grocery store, some adorable little rugrat is wanting to carry the frozen thing, so he is zigzagging down the aisle, and so I pull over so as not to crush him with my cart full of green chile soup ingredients. No biggie, it's 3PM, I ate lunch and drank coffee, I am calm and even if in a hurry, these 22 seconds are not gonna keep me from my appointment with the Pope. Mom then APOLOGIZES, for the fact that her kid is being a kid. Noooo apology necessary super mom!
So here it is, my formal permission to you moms to be wherever it is you are, to do things at a less than mad-dash of a pace than one might expect of Micheal Phelps in a Beijing pool, to be inefficient, to let your kiddos be kiddos in mildly annoying ways, to NOT APOLOGIZE TO ME FOR BEING IN MY WAY. Because, though sometimes you might really be in my way, for the most part, you're just another collection of particles in the universe trying to fly to Hawaii or buy some fancy olives, and I'm totally ok with that.
