Looking back, thinking forward, living now

Come this time every year, I can't help but join the masses in feeling more introspective than usual. I trick myself into believing that by 23:59 of the 31st, I must have worked out most of my flaws and past failures, acknowledged everything that I have to be grateful for, and be ready to face the new year with clear goals in mind and the resilience to accomplish them.

2017 has been a toughly joyful year. Or joyfully tough? It was the most sweet and sour year I've had in my life, though I know without the shadow of a doubt that its highlight (the birth of my son) outweighs any and all hardships I have faced. 

*10*

This time last year, I was about 2 months pregnant. I was so happy, so grateful, so scared - I ached to tell people about my little bundle of joy, yet I wouldn't dare. 

*9*

I rushed to write my resolutions, a little later than usual. I normally write them throughout the 31st or a couple of days before (for fear that a last minute event would force me to refocus my objectives for the following year), but last year I found myself hurrying through them in the last hour. "This time around, it doesn't matter", I thought, knowing I wouldn't look again at them past January 1st anyway. My number one aim was to become a mother.

*8*

...To become a mother while generally becoming a better person, too, of course. That's what resolutions are all about, in any case. I guess most of us strive to be a better version of ourselves in one way or another.  Although it's exhausting, to be honest, having this insatiable urge to "become better".

*7*

Last year I aimed at becoming a mother while keeping my anxiety in check, being kinder, meditating, doing yoga, kicking ass at work, being there for my husband, keeping in touch with my family and friends, writing on a regular basis and working on my German. 

*6*

Yet, that's not enough - is it ever? New Year's Eve is just as much an opportunity to start new, to refresh our resilience, to have hope and believe that this time around it'll be different, I will be different!... as it is the opportunity to remind oneself that there will always be, without a doubt, room for improvement.

*5*

I always opt to focus on the former option, for the sake of my own sanity and to cultivate some optimism. It's the very least I owe to my son. In a world where Trump is president, we could all use optimism.

*4*

This year, I must carry somewhat of a load with me past the last minute of 2017. As someone who craves organization, clear-cut ends/beginnings and is extremely structure-driven, this is has been hard for me to accept. I held on to the hope that it would be sorted until the last business day of the year, but it didn't really work that way. It's taken a bit away from my childish hope that things can change for the better, just like that, at the turn of the clock. I wish I could leave this load behind, but alas, it' beyond me. What's new on my new year's resolutions? Accept the things I can't control. 

*3*

Yet! It's always at the very end of a countdown, once we're past introspection and hope and uncertainty and perhaps even regret that we say "SCREW IT! I'm gonna enjoy myself". For what matters in the end and should suffice beyond any other accomplishment is that we're here now. We're healthy, we're fed, we have a roof over our heads and we have each other.  I could be a master-yogi-meditation-guru-badass-businesswoman-fierce-fearless-mother tomorrow, and perhaps I will. For now, however, being myself is plenty and anything else is honestly a generous bonus.

*2*

So come midnight I will put my load down, drink champagne, kiss my husband, hug my parents, embrace my son and truly hope. Hope for myself and for all of us that we can get past whatever let us down in the past, that we can get the renewal we want and deserve from turning the page into a new year, that we can focus on all that we have to look forward to, and that we can be grateful for what we already have. I'll hope - no, believe - that I have the resilience necessary to accomplish every single thing that I set out to do, including (but not limiting myself to) being the best mother I can be. I'll also believe that if these things aren't accomplished, I'll have the wisdom to be truly happy with what is already here.

*1*

We can always pick up our loads again tomorrow. For now, we drink, we sing, we dance, and we believe.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The most wonderful time of the year

My husband and I couldn't have come from more different backgrounds. He's French/American, I'm Brazilian; he's a passionate omnivore, I'm a vegetarian; he's as much of an extrovert as I am an introvert; and at last the one that gets to us the most - religion.

When YY and I started dating, I had very few expectations. Knowing he was a nice Jewish guy from a pretty traditional family, and most importantly knowing that I was not, it's needless to say that I thought it might be smart to keep things casual for my own heart's sake. I've grown up pretty much agnostic, even though my family's Catholic. My own parents chose to not baptize me so that one day I could opt for a religion myself, should I want one.

8 years, a marriage and a baby later, I am grateful to have failed at "keeping it casual".

Yet, with all the love and respect and mutual admiration that we have for each other, raising a little human in our context is particularly mind-boggling. It's at "the most wonderful time of the year" that fundamental questions, so obvious to most couples, hit us the hardest. With the end of Hanukkah and with Christmas right around the corner, the first holiday season with our little guy necessarily brings up doubts about how we want to raise him, and how we would like to set up the cornerstone of his cherished childhood memories and lifelong traditions.

For starters, we live in Germany, a country which official language neither of us master. Although we appreciate the culture, it isn't ours to keep or pass on. So when it comes to traditions, whose should we follow? Should S, our son, believe that the Christ Kindl brings him gifts on the 25th of December, as would Bavarian kids? Will he feel left out if we don't put together an advent calendar? Or should he believe in Santa Claus, like his mom once did? Should he, like her, stay up late on the 24th to open the gifts that somehow Santa had just brought, and yet had also paradoxically been sitting under the tree for the past month?

Or should we tell him from the get-go that Santa isn't real? Should we focus solely on Hanukkah? In which case, should we make it slightly more appealing by having YY dress up as an armadillo like Ross did on Friends? Otherwise, when it comes to gifts, should he get 9 of them? With so many questions, one thing is for certain - YY and I are determined to do things our way, as unique as it may sound and whatever that may be.

While I am ready to set aside my mostly Catholic upbringing, I am not ready to give up on Christmas. I didn't have many traditions growing up, so Christmas Eve was truly the highlight of many of my years. It was the one day when my family got together, traveling from all over the state of Rio, gathering at my home. I would wake up to the smell of traditional Christmas food, hoping with all my might that "this year, finally, I would get a puppy!" (my number one wish on Santa's list for 28 years and counting). My mom would blast Christmas carols all day long, always starting with an old Disney CD we owned. I remember the day I realized Santa wasn't real, from seeing my cousin's black hair under the wig - I was equally disappointed with the truth and proud of myself for being smart. Long story short, the memories are too many and too great to give up on, and I would like to provide the opportunity for my son to build a similar repertoire of childhood souvenirs. YY, of course, has just as many memories from his own Hanukkah celebrations, and I don't see why either of us should want to omit or prevent our son from enjoying our traditions - all of them.

To be honest, we're winging it. But the other day I was finally certain that we're on the right track, when YY picked up S and said: "Do you realize how lucky you are little one? You get latkas AND panettone!". That sounds about right. That's just how lucky we are, this or any other time of the year, loving and supporting each other because of our differences, not in spite of them. With that in mind and in the spirit of the season, I wish you and yours the happiest of holidays.

Photo credit: Carolina Goetz