2011-Wrap Up (more or less)

Due to my infrequent posting this past while...decided to complete this meme to catch some people up...all 5 of you.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you have never done before?
I went rafting on a river as a college activity. It was very awesome!! I also attended a funeral for a biker that was a regular in my store. I have never been to a funeral before (just a wake/viewing..not sure what it's called) much less a biker one. It was very emotional as several friends of his read poems or said something rather informally. I might add that compared to funerals I see on tv (my only comparison) its impromptu and informal feeling made it seem more special and meaningful..at least to me.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I consider resolutions to be like promises to yourself...and I'm not one for making promises because I'm not always able to keep them. This not only disappoints the one I made them too but I let myself down in the process as well. So...no resolutions...but I do give myself options. Options are good.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not that I am aware of...(should check Facebook statuses more often maybe)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Only the ones I read in books...I'm home after 23 years..don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
I specific date that will change my life...I know its somewhere up ahead...but no idea when it will manifest itself.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why.
Arab Spring...the totality of all those arab countries (the date as each one started more or less) coming to life and seeing their dictators fall one by one..with a few more still to go...but as each one falls I can't help but feel apprehensive that the only result will be a new one taking the place of the old. Let's hope, for their sake, real change will happen from deep within..and not just surface change that really changes nothing at all.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I spent most of my younger years (in Bahrain) practicing a level of patience unknown to most. I had to if I wanted to survive with my sanity intact...but these past few years a certain amount of jaded impatience had crept in and I seemed unable to stop the takeover. I worked very hard this year to gain some of that former patience back...though not to the extent I will take anything from anyone as before...I am no longer in a position of having to submit for the sake of peace or my children. It's been hard but I feel I'm gaining ground.

9. What was your biggest failure?
See #8 those times that I failed to practice patience are the times people got hurt. For that I failed them..and myself.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Ended up in the emergency room with a severe tooth infection...wasn't pretty or something I wish to repeat. Fell down a flight of stairs....killed my knee which still gives me grief from time to time. And of course the most painful of all...a heart that will remain injured and in constant pain until the only person that can repair it is free to do so. This could take awhile so...2012 round up addition maybe? *sigh*


11. What was the best thing you bought?
A ring for someone special.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Every person that withheld their tongue from saying something that would hurt another. It takes true effort to bite your tongue and we do not always manage that...a celebration is called for (even if nobody even knows there is a need for one except you) whenever this happens. If this was you at anytime..my hats off to you. I didn't always manage it.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Humans killing humans simply to remain in power...we all are going to die..that power you are killing for..will still be there long after you are gone...is that spilled blood worth it?

14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills. Not many extras this year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
3 "really's? Hmmm....well I got really excited about doing so well in college..hard work and no sleep pays off even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. I got really really excited as summer arrived and I knew a certain person was coming to visit. BUT my really really REALLY excited moment will be when #6 happens. It will definitely be worth 3 "reallys".

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2011?
Bruno Mars: It Will Rain

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: Happier or sadder?
This is a tough question because certain aspects of my life make me happier simply because it is not like it use to be...but then other parts are not going as I wish them to and so sadness is also ever present. I have my ups and downs...as long as the ups last longer than the downs...I will manage to get through them.


18. Thinner or fatter?
My bank account is definitely thinner.

19. richer or poorer?
My health is fairly even..so in that I am richer than most. My bills are also paid each month (even if that leaves nothing left over..but paid is paid) so I am richer in that respect as well. I am constantly learning new things and evolving my thoughts and beliefs to align with this new knowledge..and for that I am definitely richer than many who fail to take advantage of such an incalcuable amount of information out there and prefer to stick to what they "know". However, I do not have many friends still (haven't quite learned how to make them and keep them...lived too long without much company I suppose..I'm sad to admit I am still socially inept) so for that I am definitely poorer. Also, a few of the people I love most are far from me...until they are near me again..I am most definitely poorer in that respect.

20. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Reading things that didn't have an exam after it. Ride my bike when the weather was good. Take 2 day trips or something similar and see new things.

21. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Crying...thinking of past mistakes.

22. How did you spend Christmas?
Sleeping...with my schedule I have to grab sleep when I can.

23. How many one-night stands?
Well since this is not Facebook and such information is strictly for that social outlet..I shall plead the 5th. ;)

24. What was your favorite TV program?
I don't watch much TV but watch the occasional series on netflix now and then. I got caught up in Breaking Bad. Excellent. I also liked Army Wives.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Not sure if hate is the right word...but someone that I thought loved me...proved that anyone can hold a knife and seek to shred your heart with it. I do not hate her...I simply feel nothing. To hate her would be to think about her and flame the hate...I'm past such things. I cut her from my life...unfortunately taking that knife out has proved difficult...can't reach around to my back like I could when I was younger.

26. What was the best book you read?
Didn't have lots of time to read anything outside of college but I did find time to read a few things. A book by Christopher Hitchens really spoke to me. Religion Poisons Everything. Also, Daniel Dennet's Breaking the Spell.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Adele..though I didn't "discover" her...she's been around...just had not heard of her.

28. What did you want and get?
A kindle...but really haven't had time to enjoy it as much as I would like.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I saw very few new films this year...still hooked on some old ones that I watched again though.

30. What did you do on your birthday?
My friend took me to dinner with her husband and some friends. It was a special night...you don't turn 29 every year...well actually I do but whose counting.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
The same one I have practiced most of my life (even under the abaya)..jeans and tshirt.

32. What kept you sane?
The fact that there are still people who love me...despite my failures..or maybe because of them. Not real sure.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I have/had (not sure if it's gone yet or I just haven't had time to muse about it) a serious girl crush on Ellen Degeneres. The lady obviously has her down times like all of us but she still manages to light up a room and make people smile...even when you don't really feel like it...and she does it without making others the butt of cruel "jokes". That takes a lot of class in hollywood anymore.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Bahrain protestors. (and all arab states but this one is personal for obvious reasons) This little island that is "known" for being so goddam friendly is shown to the world to be exactly what it is and has always been...a little island ruled by a corrupt family who will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep their pitiful little self appointed titles, money, and corrupt life styles.

35. Who did you miss?
My daughter who is far from me...and my love.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
My anthropology teacher was one of the most interesting people I have ever met.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Realizing that even though you love someone...you cannot have them in your life if you want to keep peace within yourself and keep the drama down. You have to cut them loose even if it seems like the harshest remedy.

That's it more or less...as stated. 2011 went by so fast...and yet so slow. Some interesting things happened, some fun stuff, a few sorrows..and a couple of surprises as well. Learned a few things about myself that made me go hmmmm...but all in all...I survived it. I consider that a blessing when so many across the globe didn't.

p.s. I will start posting more here now that college is done...I had the most hectic college/work schedule and could find no time to formulate thoughts that weren't meant for a paper of some sort. One more semester of college to go..but I think I can find time this semester to post my usual drivel. Stay tuned, folks.

Funny thing happened on the way to Christmas....

*I wrote this for my college paper-enjoy


The holiday season is upon us once again and as I drive around seeing the beginnings of holiday cheer being strung up on houses and trees aligning the streets, I can not help but think of holiday seasons of the past. Growing up in my house meant that holidays were a hit and miss affair. Depending on my father's mood, which could change like the weather in Wyoming, we might get to celebrate with reasonable good cheer, or watch dejectedly as he flung our decorated tree out the front door yet again complaining about the space it took up or the fact that it was just a merchandising gimmick for the already rich. Unlike most children my age I did not look forward to Christmas in quite the same light. For them it was charging into the holiday spirit with a mix of family visits, shopping trips, holiday music playing non stop and possibly church attendance and other religious gatherings. For us it was more or less tiptoeing into it with shopping squeezed in when he was not around, decorating when he was not watching television, phone calls having to do in place of family visits that we rarely were allowed, and the only gatherings we took part in were usually done at 3 a.m. as he drug us from our beds to stand at attention while he prowled back and forth with one of his many guns in hand as he ranted on yet again about how ungrateful we all were and he would be doing himself a huge favor just to blow us all away and be done with it. After 2 or 3 hours we would be allowed back to our beds but sleep was a long time coming. Not to mention on those Christmas mornings that actually did arrive with tree and gifts intact, I do believe my sisters and I engaged in the quietest present opening finale ever in the history of children and Christmas.

My married life was spent overseas with a man and in a country that did not celebrate Christmas or the holidays (though generally the expat community took part in a more subdued low key scale) as the major religion followed was not Christianity, which means it has been over 23 years since I have been free to celebrate this holiday free of stress and with my own family traditions. Of course at this time I have no family traditions concerning the holidays. I am lucky that I am free to create my own, to take on those aspects of the holidays which appeal to me and discard the parts that do not. I do not have family clamoring for me to do things "how it has always been done" nor do I have that frenzied aspect that has me creating lists and "checking them twice" and wondering who I left out of the holiday card/gift giving round. This first real holiday will be baby steps for me. Tentative forays into the great unknown, grabbing onto familiar objects along the way to ensure I have the support I need to take my next step. First I had to buy a tree.

The other day I went to the store to buy decorations for that first tree I have ever bought and walked up and down the aisles for an hour picking up and discarding a myriad of decorative choices having no clue what I wanted. It seemed that decorating my own tree was going to be a lot harder than I thought. I wanted it to be perfect but had no idea what perfect was. Eventually I came home with a string of lights and two boxes of colored bulbs and that was all. A week later the tree has the lights and only 4 bulbs on it as the placement of those 4 bulbs took me to levels of anxiety I have only ever felt while trying to fit in all this college homework with deadlines ever at the forefront. I told myself I would not get sucked into the whole holiday season stressed out nerve wracking aspect of it but the fact that I can not even decorate my own tree without needing a time out in between bulb placements does not bode well.

I visited the stores on Black Friday and could not find a single item that I felt required my hard earned money to be sacrificed for. I came home with some paper towels and some jingle bells that hang from my front door...and a little jingle that hangs from my backpack. For some reason, as I pushed my empty shopping cart through the throngs of frenzied shoppers, I kept thinking to myself, is THIS what I have been missing all these years? Shopping for things I do not need for people I do not particularly care for, or do not care for me, and putting myself in debt that I might pay off just in time to do it all again next year? I was the only one in the 12 items or less lane as I paid for my items and left. I could not help but notice the cashier eyeballing my mostly empty cart and giving me a sad look as if she "understood" my situation...possibly that I could not afford to fill my cart like the other 99.9% of the stores customers?

Because my children have not been raised with that holiday expectation that builds up as commercials and radio jingles bombard them with the latest "must have" as the magical day draws closer, inquiries as to what they would like "from" Santa have been met with shrugged shoulders and the rolling of eyeballs. It apparently pains them to humor their mother and let me have something on this list I am meant to have. My list is empty just now...all though underwear and socks are always holiday gift giving favorites. I am sure they will receive those with the same amount of joy that I did when I parted the colorful paper, opened the red/silver/green box and discovered clothing as my reward for being a child and having wants and desires that did not include cotton or the words "one size fits all". I guess my habit of gifting them for bringing joy to my life all throughout the year has sort of turned them into cynics about this whole end of year gift giving extravaganza. Darn spoiled kids!

So every night as I pass my still yet undecorated tree and tiptoe by my sleeping children that are most likely NOT dreaming of sugar plum fairies, it is only 3 weeks until Santa arrives and "good will and peace on earth" reigns...at least for a little while. For one brief moment we can forget CNN and it's nightly round up of mans inhumanity to man across the globe. We can skip right over FoxNews and get our source of entertainment from family and friends that make us laugh and feel good rather than just laugh from sheer jaw dropping idiocy. We can put aside our differences and focus on our similarities and let the small stuff slide off our horrible holiday sweatered backs. Later we can drive through neighborhoods and admire other people's ability to defy gravity and put lights in places only squirrels should have access too or who seem intent on spreading the message of Peace on Earth to any lifeforms that may be passing by our galaxy and happen to look down and see a house with enough lights that the glare on their spaceship window causes them to crash into a passing weather satellite.

As each of you head into your own holiday season and pull out your well worn family traditions concerning it think about how those traditions came to be and whether or not they are a true reflection of what the holiday really means to you. As we are all struggling to get through this recession the best way we can, consider trying to experience a Christmas season that is less focused on "things" and more on feelings and that good will everyone keeps going on about, including myself..and if you hear someone walking down the hallway here at college jingling all the way...that would be yours truly.

Have a wonderful holiday season and try to make at least one person smile that maybe has not had a reason to in a good long while. That is a gift worth giving.

p.s. for those curious enough to consider the "hidden meaning" of this post...no I don't consider myself a Christian and see enjoying the Christmas season as an affirmation of that...I just happen to like twinkle lights and decorated trees and the general atmosphere of "be kind to others" mentality that seems to take over this time of year. I enjoy the joy...so to speak...and that has nothing to do with religion...and probably despite it.