Tag: New Years

As the Calendar Changes, a Look Around

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, insights/observations, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The first thing I did in the New Year was pay my American Express bill (well, technically it was the second think I did, after picking up the broken champagne flute and depositing the empty bottles of Veuve in the recycling.) Next, it was on to the gym. When I got home, I baked butter tarts and cheese biscuits, then googled “Oscar Isaac relationship status.”

If these acts kicking-off my 2016 are in anyway indicative of some underlying, motivating New Year’s resolutions, those resolutions would have to be:

  1. Continue to improve personal financial solvency.
  2. Obtain fitness model physique.
  3. Consume more carbohydrates.
  4. Marry Oscar Isaac.

If I really think about it, I’m fairly confident I can achieve all of these in the next 12 months (even if Nos. 1 and 3 seem in complete competition and I didn’t get a FitBit for Christmas). #4 seems particularly obtainable…

giphy

Oscar Isaac… Swoon. (New Year’s Eve had included seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens in IMAX 3D.)

On Wednesday, the last day our offices were open in 2015, my boss called to riddle off a few final requests and bid me an enjoyable long weekend.

“2016 is going to be a great year for all of us,” she said.

“Well, I certainly hope so…” I immediately envisioned the upcoming 12 months — a long list of projects which forecasts a relentless, Sisyphean push uphill scrolled across my mental computer screen. I think I threw-up a little in my mouth. “Yes. I mean, yes. Of course it will be a fabulous year!”

sisyphusThe changing calendar triggers a flurry of contradictory feelings. Nostalgia — for the year closing and years past. Excitement — the chance to start afresh and the promise of new adventure. Fear — a lot of life happens in a short period of time; can I handle what lays ahead?

“Your Year Ahead” emails, complete with horoscopes, exercise plans, shopping “musts,” and travel suggestions start hitting your inbox on Boxing Day. If you hadn’t had a chance to think about what’s next, you certainly are now.

Resolutions emerge, our proposed answers to the question: how will I “show up” this year?

2015 was pretty fabulous year — the first 7 months were loaded with firsts, with successes, with travel, and fetes. In turned 30 and with a new decade came the summer — a slower paced season which brought changes, more travel, and a little illness. Fall was a mixed bag, highlighted by still more travel, but otherwise a slog. The year closed with the flu, but great family and friends. In general, I felt that I was always running to catch up and to get ahead. The changing calendar was the first time I had a chance to look back and enjoy, because from the moment the datebook read 2015, I’ve been looking ahead… into March 2016, September 2017, February 2018… If only I had a crystal ball.

There is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming months — exhibition openings, a wedding, arty parties, travel, an extra week of paid vacation — little exclamation points on my calendar that await sentences to fill the lines between them. Generally, I walk into the pages of this new year with excitement. Who doesn’t love the start of a new story (especially when Oscar Isaac is cast in the cinematic adaptation…) Let’s leap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a drink to you, 2012

On By KathleenIn Career, DatingLeave a comment

As 2012 draws to a close, I confess, I’m a little sad. It was a good year. Nay, a great year. The kind of year you look back on and think: “Gee, I hope I have another 2012.”

I got my moment to shine, curating my first NYTimes reviewed exhibit
I got my moment to shine, curating my first NYTimes reviewed exhibit

2012 got off to a rickety start. I was frustrated at work and play. I was suffering from typical mid-winter doldrums, the kind that come with a restlessness that makes you start looking at new job postings or considering applying to culinary school. On January 2nd, I had lunch with a guy I had met online and thought would turn into Mr. Right. He didn’t call me back. Humpf. I was uninspired as January began to click down.

By March, I was singing a different tune. Life was off and running. After a few small-scale successes, I was curating my first marquee exhibition for my organization. I’d see a raise, a promotion, and  a full-page spread in the New York times. There would be failed but funny first dates. The guy that didn’t call me back became a trusted friend.

Old friends made their mark as we planned new adventures. Reunions happened on a grand scale. Close friends got engaged or said their “I-dos” with joy and really delicious wedding cake. Love blossomed under a moonlit canopy and carried through the summer into late autumn, when the changing weather brought with it new prespectives. We closed one chapter and began to write another.

Guadi stole our hearts in Spain
Guadi stole our hearts in Spain

My mother and I packed our suitcases and gallivanted across Europe, embarking on the kind of ramble through five countries that can only be summed up as a trip of lifetime.

A hurricane hit. We were left relatively unscathed, but others were less lucky.

Yes, as it turns out, 2012 was one exciting, raucous ramble from beginning to end. There were some rough patches, some catastrophes, some heartbreak, some unpleasantness that will leave their scars, but all in all, 2012 was a year of highlights for me. I’m lucky, and grateful to be so.

My wish for you, and perhaps my hope for me too, is that 2013 is the kind of year where we’ll all look back and say: “Gee, I hope I have another 2013.”

 

 

Resolving to be Resolute to Find Love or Let Love Find You?

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, insights/observations, Love1 Comment

January 1st is the universally accepted date of renewal — the calender starts afresh and we get to put behind all the foibles of 2010. As we embrace the new calendar, we make lists of resolutions, of self-made promises to motivate us through the next 365 days (but really, only through January).

The stack of diet books I've accumulated to match my resolution to Lose Weight in the New Year... how do you think I did...

My custom before setting fresh goals for the new year is to flip through old notebooks and diaries searching for records of New Year’s Resolutions past, evaluating my success and accepting my shortcomings. There were a number of constants over the years, namely the universal standards:

Lose weight.

Find Love.

Write a book.

Clean basement.

Find inner peace… Optional and for extra credit: join movement to bring about World Peace.

For the first time, it occurred to me that “Find Love” was the most challenging of the goals. “Find love” — it’s an active, commanding statement that puts the quest for Love Everlasting on par with “lose weight.” It implies that, just as a regimented diet and exercise routine gives me power over my waistline, I have some control over Cupid and his henchmen. It implies that if I grab the bull by the horns, leave no stone unturned and tear the curtains asunder, there will be a shining treasure waiting for me. If I just look hard enough…

But let’s be honest, when it comes to finding love, there are far too many stones in need of turning.

Venus & Cupid: the dangerous yet dynamic love-conjuring duo we try to employ come the New Year

In 2006, I resolved “to fall in love.” This was a mistake. Falling in love is easy and, much to my eventual chagrin, I accomplished the mission before midyear.

So in 2007, I needed a sequel resolution: Make “Bob” fall in love with me. Again, I had conjured a statement that implied I was Venus and Cupid was at my beck-and-call…

It may come as a surprise to you that as of January 1, 2008, I was on a mission to “Fall out of love with ‘Bob.'”

By 2010, after a 2009 dedicated to “Letting Love Find Me,” I had a new journal and a new outlook on resolutions. On the journal’s inside cover, in my best, most decorative script, I scrawled  William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus” and decided to commit the poem’s stanzas to memory. I had had enough with these commands to get thin, let love happen, and learn to play the guitar — making this poem my mantra was the closest thing to making a New Year’s resolution I was, and am willing to do.

Yet while “my unconquerable soul” may  resolve to make me the “captain of my fate,” something tells me that if I want to cross “Find Love” off my list of future New Year to-dos, my heart may have to accept being anything but unconquerable.