Making it Happen

I am procrastinating. Post-holidays, post-sickness, post-everything, I need to go grocery shopping AND get an X-ray. I should have already done one or both, especially knowing I have a deadline. I have to pick Noah up at 10:45. Well, technically, not until 11, but I have to lie to myself and say 10:45 or I will overestimate how long everything takes me. So 10:45.

Happy 2013!

I was thinking earlier this morning as Joey ran through the house chanting the year (I can only assume it was in preparation for chanting he'll do at school--chanting is a very big thing with little boys) about every year I've lived through that ends in a '3.' I'm horribly superstitious. I won't even bore you with all the weird things I do in full belief that they will make a difference in the outcome of any given circumstance--nothing dangerous or dealing with blood, of course, I'm not crazy. 

Odd numbered years are generally really good ones for me. But years that end in 3s? Well, in 1983, I was only three (I turned four in October), but I imagine things were great for me back then. I started nursery school, which must have been a blast--I definitely remember there being a snow table once, and I also painted the masterpiece of a lifetime, "Blue Gorilla," which some jerky classmate painted over when I wasn't looking and now the world will never know--and I remember there being a lot of parties. The parties aren't actually exclusive to 1983, but rather my entire childhood, but I feel it's fair to include them in the memory of this particular year as filler.

Then there was 1993, the year I graduated from eighth grade. This, I know, was NOT a good year for me. It's the Year My Hair Turned Curly, which can serve as a huge metaphor for everything that went on that year. Really, as I reflect, everything turned upside-down for me in 1993. It was also the year I started high school, the year I got my heart broken for the millionth time (I started falling in love in kindergarten), and the year of my great track injury. If you're interested in THAT, you can read about it here.

And, most recently, 2003. This might as well be the Year My Hair Turned Curly, too, but instead will call it the Year of Janus. Janus was the god of doorways in ancient Rome. He had two faces, and we get the word "January" from him, because January is a doorway to a new year. Ooh! Appropriate for January 2, and I didn't even mean to. So, yes. The Year of Janus. Some things ended, and it's also the year I started dating Joe. Like, officially. After a bowling event. Lots of bowling, and then, later, lots of declarations of feelings. Very monumental in my life. And at the end of 2003, I got engaged on Christmas Eve.

So what will 2013 bring? Many of you are snickering and saying, "A baby?" I snicker back at you, right in your face. No. 2013 will be the year I return to work and the year I turn 34, but I hope it brings much more. This year (and these are not resolutions, because I'm not really making any promises to myself about behavior changes with regard to any of this), I hope for a cure for germophobia. I hope for no kidney stones (which reminds me, I'm supposed to be getting an X-ray). I hope for great accomplishments and success. I hope for healthy, happy children. I hope for a fully fenced backyard, instead of a partially fenced one, and a dog that I can leave alone for longer than an hour (since I have to go back to work in September). I hope for a big trip. That'd be great. Maybe two. And...painting our family room. I can't do that myself because of the ceilings, but I hope it happens. A nice basil-y color, perhaps.

What do you hope for this year? Outside of your own resolutions and behavior-change promises, what do you just HOPE will happen? What will light your fire or make 2013 a great year for you? Because, ultimately, some years are good, and some years are bad, but it really is up to us to make it happen, I guess.

Welcome to 2013. Good luck making it happen.