2011

I doubt I will make it to midnight. Years past, I welcomed the new year with friends, drinks, kisses and songs.  This year, I will stay cocooned in my bed, with my sleeping husband and baby.  I will rouse myself and my husband briefly, we will kiss each other, kiss our sleeping little boy and welcome 2012.

2011 has been an amazing year -- amazingly wonderful and so very tough.  But, I know that I will always look back on this year as the year that my little boy was born, the year that I became a mother, and the year that my husband and I were transformed into a family.  For those things, I am so very grateful.  We drove past the hospital where the little man was born yesterday, and I felt nothing but warm fuzzy feelings and cozy memories of a snowy night in February when our midwife announced that we had a son.  I remember driving home from the hospital, feeling so vulnerable and that the world was so bright, so colorful.  I remember the months that followed, learning my little boy.  I learned that he liked to patted so softly when falling asleep.  I learned that I loved having him in the bed right next to me.  I learned how to finally get out of the house on my own.  My husband and I learned how to relate to each other all over again.  And that was the part of the year that was tough.  I was not prepared for how this year would rock my marriage.  How it would tear us down in front of each other, and how difficult it would be to learn to love again.  Despite the sharpness, the bitterness of this year, I believe my husband and I are stronger as a couple than we ever have been before.

2012.  How I look forward to this year.  This year, I will escape from my biglaw job.  Even though it is still a few months away, I can taste the freedom that leaving biglaw will bring.  I can feel the relief and the stress melting away at just the thought of leaving.  Ah, how I long for this freedom.  It feels so long in coming, and the taste of it so sweet.  This year, we will escape the city and return home.  We will (god-willing) sell our house in the city, and buy a new house and land in our home state.  We will purchase the home that the little man will grow up in, the place that he will call home.  In my mind, I can see my husband, the little man, the Monster and I walking our new land.  Creating a path over the land that, with time, will become well troden.   I will cry when we leave the house that we brought the little man home to from the hospital, but I will know that there are such good things ahead of us.  And then, this fall, I will return to a job that I love, to a boss that I adore and to coworkers who are true friends.  

There is so much more that I want for 2012.  

Most of all, I want my husband to find a job that he adores.  For him, I want a job that makes him feel like all of his hard work has been worth the sacrifice.  I want him to wake up excited each morning, a little scared too, of the challenge that lies ahead of him.  

I want to write more -- three times a week.  I want to write with reckless abandon and not be concerned with perfection.  I want to believe that I what I have to say is worthy of being written, even if I cannot make it perfect.  I want to stop caring about perfection.  I want to banish the belief that if something is not perfect, it should be discarded, that it should be erased, deleted.  (Thank you biglaw for instilling in me a belief that only the perfect should be published.  A fine belief for biglaw, but not a great belief for small law, let alone life.)

I want to run.  I want to push my body and feel the achy tiredness of a long run.  I want to loose the little belly that remains from the little man.  Meh.  I just want to run, if the little belly disappears, fabulous, but I'll survive and love my body either way.

I want to stop buying things.  My biglaw job has afforded us the ability to purchase without thought.  I don't want my son growing up believing that things are more important than people, and I don't want him believing that we can just buy things without needing them.  So, I want to stop buying stuff.  I am fine buying the things I NEED, but I want to cut back on the stuff that I WANT or just WOULD LIKE to have.

I am so excited for 2012.  There are fabulous days ahead, of that I am sure.  And I am excited for what I do not know is coming.  Will the house sell quickly?  ( I REALLY hope so.)  Will we find the house and land of our dreams?  (Whatever we find will be great.)  Will I get pregnant this year?  (Maybe) Will I run a half-marathon? (Absolutely.)  

So here's to 2011, an amazing year.  And here's to 2012.  I cannot wait to see what this year brings.