Your Unemployed Daughter

photo credit: Tara Spalty

Boxing Day! For many, this is the Day After Christmas, aka the Day for Poor People to Give THEIR Gifts, or the Day to Return Crap You Never Wanted But Got Anyway, or the Day for Churches to Take Your Money, or the Day to Be Nice to People Even if They Drive You Completely Bonkers.

For me, it’s the Day that I Return to NYC. I have some mixed feelings about the whole thing. First of all, being the 30-something-year-old single daughter in an otherwise coupled-off family can screw with you a little. And/or make you revert to certain childish or insecure behaviors that you thought you licked long ago. And then there’s simply going from your adult, independent, all-about-you life to living with your parents again (and they like to talk!) for five or six days straight. There’s an adjustment there.

Yes, it’s Christmas, and while that should make things ever the jollier, sometimes it just makes you a little bit stressed and sad. There’s so much pressure that some neurotics have opted out completely. That seems extreme to me. I like my family, nay, love them. I like going home for the holidays.

But going back home after the holidays, well, that’s nice too.

And so, M&D&B&S, if I was a cranky crankerson or just my usual borderline bitchy self, I apologize. In honor of Boxing Day, I’d like to publicly announce my 10 (draft-form) resolutions for the coming year. This gives me a few days to pefect them before I fully accept them on NYE with a ritualistic champagne-swig.

1. I will finish that second novel (i.e., the one I actually get published), and I will stop being such a pussy about working on it.

2. I will like myself more, even when I think I am failing. I’ll stop beating myself up for trying, that is, or for not doing things perfectly. I—and this hurts—am not perfect. So if I fuck up, and I will, I will chalk it up to learning and move on. Similarly, I will not let fear of failure paralyze me.

3. I will refrain from shopping as therapy (except, maybe, every now and again in a case of dire necessity), and I will pay down my credit card. Ugh.

4. I will get freelancer’s insurance because I’m pretty sure my COBRA is about to go up to $500 a month.

5. I will not lose myself, whether it has to do with work or fear or stress or relationships or alcohol. I should know myself pretty well by now. Instead of ignoring or hiding what I know, I need to own it, for the good and bad.

6. That said, sometimes the bad is not so good. Let’s work on that a little. There’s always room for improvement. And maybe, every now and again, saying no to the extra glass of wine. And being nice.

7. I will get really good at boxing and actually use the pink gloves I purchased in 2009, perhaps to beat up some unsuspecting fool who thinks I am a wimp, but nicely (see above).

8. I’ll do what I love more, and what I hate less. It will all work out in the end, except I will be happy instead of sad. I will have faith in this.

9. I will go somewhere and learn to surf, or at least attempt to learn to surf. Failing that, I will ski down at least one mountain screaming “Yeeha!” in black coveralls. And I’ll take the bike out of hibernation and ride down to South Street Seaport before August.

10. I will clean my oven well enough that it stops making the carbon monoxide alarm go off. Because when the firemen come to my apartment with truck sirens blaring and then tell me I shouldn’t have cooked that soy patty in such a dirty oven, it’s just embarrassing.

Anything I missed?