Dec
23
This isn’t the exact design of our card (I hemmed and hawed over card layouts and naturally found the one I like the best a couple weeks after ordering and mailing out the ones I originally chose), and the Festive Family Newsletter has been altered a bit, but if I could afford more than two damn books of stamps this year, and I had all your addresses like the good little stalker I am, this is what I’d have sent you:
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Hello family and friends!
What a busy year it’s been at our household! Why, it’s almost impossible to know where to start—but let’s begin with this very card you hold in your hands. We are very happy with this image, which took a mere three hours, 4928105 digital photos, two sobbing children, and the eventual threat of bodily harm to capture! Gosh, there were SO MANY options featuring a child with a vacant, drooling gaze, or an adult whose facade of happiness slipped for a moment to reveal the desperate, sweaty desire for escape burning deep within their soul . . . but we felt this one was the best representation of Team Sundry!
Go team!!!
2009 has been very exciting for John, what with the launch of his new business Vioguard and his new title of ENTREPRENEUR! It was a hard decision to say goodbye to Microsoft, but we all feel confident this was the best choice for him. Unless of course the company runs out of money, in which case we sure hope you have an extra room in your house for us! Ha ha! Don’t worry, only one of us still wets the bed! Whoops, make that two!
Linda continues to enjoy life at Workplace, where she is very proud of the fact that after nearly eight continuous years of employment with the same company, she finally knows how to replace the water jug—all by herself!
We couldn’t be more proud of our kids and their many achievements in 2009. Riley had a fantastic day recently at school where he received not one, but TWO separate Injury Incident Reports for running headfirst into doorways! We were so thrilled! One more and he gets Preschool Head Bump Bingo! AIM HIGH, RILEY! Dylan’s second birthday is in February, but we’re convinced he’s a gifted child because he’s been in the terrible twos for months! Watch out, MENSA! Dylan’s also talking up a storm these days, and his favorite word to say is “horse”. Can you imagine how adorable it is to hear a toddler say “horse” all day long? “HORSE. HORSE. HORSE. HORSE.” Oh, it never gets old!
It wouldn’t be a family update without some news of our pets! Sadly, our cat Meercat went missing this year, but as Riley said, maybe she’s not really on a cat vacation, maybe she’s DEAD! So that’s a comfort! Our elderly dog Ashley is still going strong, despite having the breath of a bloated, rotting walrus corpse left on a beach in the height of summer! Way to go, Ashley!
Well, happy holidays to one and all! Here’s to 2010 and even MORE heartwarming memories!
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Happy holidays, friends. You have been a huge part of my year, and I thank you for being here.
Dec
21
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your thoughtful comments on the last post. The majority of you posted things I want to print and hang on my wall, if not tattoo across my body, because those are the kind of words to live by, no matter what you’re doing. Those of you who delved a bit deeper into career-related details or end goal results, that was really good advice too. I think at this point I’m thinking more about the journey I think sounds meaningful and interesting to me, and less about the specifics of what it all might mean several years down the road—or what might change in the interim.
Small steps: first, see where I’m at with my own dusty, ancient mishmash of dubious collegiate achievement. Who knows, maybe I’ll be complaining to you about suffering through some remedial night course in pre-pre-pre-pre Algebra for Mouthbreathing Idiots soon. God, it sounds awful. God, it sounds . . . kind of wonderful.
Can we make our own second chances? I’m a thousand times more dedicated, disciplined, and excited to learn new things than I ever was at eighteen. Or twenty-eight. What might it feel like to spend my nights doing homework again, this time actually giving a damn about it? What might it feel like to actually pass those groundwork classes I dropped out of, all those years ago? What might it feel like to eventually ace a class in something that’s tapped into what really turns me on? Goddamn, even if I’m the oldest motherfucker in the entire school, what might that feel like?
I know it’s not necessary to go back to school to change careers. I know I make more money in my current field than I’d probably ever make as a fitness/health professional. And maybe adding school—even one class!—into my life would be a terrible mistake, the tipping point of what I can handle and crash, all the carefully-juggled balls come down at once.
But like many of you said: life is short. I’d rather have tried something and discovered it didn’t work than live with regrets. I could sit back and dream about everything that could have been . . . I could wait until some mystical “perfect” time . . . or I could plan the very next step.
There’s a quote I keep thinking of lately, by a crazy ultrarunner dude named Dean Karnazes. It may not speak to you, but it sure means a lot to me.
“We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we’re so comfortable we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. What I’ve found is that I’m never more alive than when I’m pushing and I’m in pain, and I’m struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there’s a magic.”
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