I've been thinking about this new year, decade, century and millennium stuff recently, as I'm sure a lot of people have been... And, I'm so thankful everyone can give that silly Y2K stuff a rest finally.
We had a quiet new year at our house. I made lots of munchies, as I've started following my parents' tradition of that here in my own family... and we watched a lot of tv.
Wallace and I are both voyeurs. Not necessarily in the sexual sense, but in many different ways. I spend countless hours watching news events as they unfold, reading other peoples' online journals, watching cams, taking in other peoples' lives. And both of us had secretly (or not so secretly) hoped for something to happen, during the process of the new year occurring all over the world. But, nothing wild happened. I did enjoy finally feeling as if the new year were a true world event, as opposed to just a local one.
Which brings me to the other things I've been thinking about during this past new year...
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The first thing I ever remember telling anyone I wanted to be when I 'grew up' was somewhere at age four or five. My life career of choice at that tender age was... a paleontologist. Popular first choice answer of children around the world, I'm sure. But, being the precocious girl I was, this was the only thing I could ever imagine being, at that age.
Somewhere around age ten, I had made another career decision. I had decided that I wanted to be a surgeon. A decision I find hilarious now, as I've grown fond of watching 'The Operation' on TLC, and it's like a train-wreck to me. It repulses me, but I seem to have to watch it.
The only stumbling block in my mind to being a surgeon was, I knew they had to know a lot of math to make it though school. And I hated math, and never did as well at it, as I did in every other subject in school. But, the money aspect of it, looked good to me, at age ten. I knew that surgeons made a lot of money. And it was more my ambition to be rich, than it ever was to actually cut into people.
Around this same time, I had finally started thinking farther ahead in my life... The song '1999' had come out recently, which led me to contemplating to calculating just how old I would be at New Year's 1999. I would be twenty-six.
I imagined myself having a fabulously successful career, as a surgeon, making buttloads of money, countless friends as fabulous as I was, that everyone would want to hang out with me... I would have the most spectacular penthouse apartment somewhere in New York City, and we would have the party that ended all parties on New Year's Eve.
I never once imagined myself to be married, and definitely didn't imagine having any children. And it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't be living in NYC.
But, I'm not a surgeon. I'm not fabulous, and I'm certainly not rich. I live in a decent apartment in Atlanta, Georgia. I spent my New Year's making snacks for my wonderful and loving husband, and playing with my miracle of a daughter. I didn't go anywhere; it never even occurred to me. I didn't get dressed up. I didn't have a throng of fabulous friends knocking on my door to hang out with me. I didn't do anything unusual. But it was unbelievably special, and undeniably better than anything I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. I'm so happy, and so very very thankful for the way my life has turned out.
And, while I probably couldn't really explain to anyone else but my family and dear friends why it was the best New Year's I've ever had... I know I get to keep all of the things that made it so very special, not just on that day, but for every day of the rest of my life.
I'm glad to be so loved.
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I do hope that everyone else had wonderful holidays. And now that our computer is not in a place where it bothers Ms. Savannah, I'll hopefully be updating more often, as it's occurred to me how many other stories I'd like to tell...