« mostly about books | Main | the gender genie »

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

blissfully content indeed

I must be one of the only people in the world for whom today is just another day. We never do a lot of New Year's celebration -- not being the types who look for any excuse for a good party these days, we'll probably just go to bed at our regular time, which may or may not be after midnight. It is a bit interesting to look back on one year and forward to the next, but considering that one will be very much like the other, that's not something I spend a whole heck of a lot of time or energy doing either. Really I'm not a stick-in-the-mud, I swear, I've just never done much for New Year's since the days that my friends and I would stay up watching movies and then call the operator at midnight to wish her (always a her!) a happy new year (we also once called the operator to ask her, because we were curious, where the operators went to work. Turns out they were in the basement of our local phone company's offices).


This year has been just amazingly happy for us. But every year generally is. I was really wondering about that yesterday -- why do I get to be the one? What caprice made God look at me and say, "that one, she's the one who gets to marry the man of her dreams, stay madly in love with him, have a beautiful family, endure just enough hardship to make her a better person without making her a nutcase, live where she wants to live, be surrounded by people she wants near her... yes, her." I look around at so many women my age, and they're full of angst about men, about their biological clocks, about whether there is someone out there who will make them happy, about the marriage they're in where they have all this dissatisfaction, about living far away from their families, and then I look at my life and I'm almost afraid to even admit I exist for fear that they'll mail-bomb me out of envy. Not that I'm the only happily married family woman in my late 20's in Western civilization -- but it does seem like I'm inordinately blessed. It was actually my husband walking around in his black work turtleneck with his sleeves pushed back that started me thinking about it last night. Oh, man, that is a good look on him. Whoever had the brilliant idea that the casual-dress Park Service uniform would include a black turtleneck in the winter has my unending gratitude. He comes home, takes off his outer khaki button-down, pushes up his sleeves, and rrrowrr. RRROOOOWWRRR.


[several minutes staring into space, fantasizing]


Yeah. What was I saying? Oh yes, looking at my husband. I feel like the school geek in some coming-of-age teen book, this nerdy awkward girl who somehow gets noticed by the guy all the girls want to be noticed by. Girls like I was just don't get to go out with men as, well, as rrroooowwwrrr as my husband is, they just don't. And the heady thing is, the thing that makes me dizzy and that I have a bit of a hard time wrapping my brain around, is that he looks at me and thinks that I'm, well, rrowwrr, for lack of a better descriptive term. Yeah, we're a pretty happy couple. Bring on 2004.

--------