Eleven things I’ve learned this year

Today I am thankful that I have outrun a cold or sinus infection or winter crumminess for as long as I have.  I feel something starting to catch up with me, and it will probably hit me full force (wordpress already is pushing me there — it corrected “ful” to “flu” — flu force) very soon.  But that’s okay.  I’ve gone longer and harder on less sleep than ever before, save Milo’s first year.

I’m not entirely sure there are 11 things I’ve learned this year, but I like the idea of reaching for 11 (Can I resist this?  No I cannot.)

1.  I have uncommon and valuable professional skills. I never really understood why employers valued me as much as they seemed to.  I thought that I was doing work that anyone could do.  I can’t really my unique contribution at work, other than to say I’m a kind of utility infielder.  Everyone else seemed smarter, more creative, more aggressive (certainly more aggressive), better networked.  My skills seemed quotidian, homely.

This year, I have had a deputy on my grinding project, and she is invaluable.  She glues things together.  She is a very quick study.  She moves things forward that need to be moved forward.  She makes me look smart and prepared.  In fact she does this on every project she works on, not just mine — and that’s another thing: she can work on just about anything.  It turns out that senior people desperately need junior people like that.  I am “like that.”  Her skills and mine are very similar.  And it turns out that not everyone has those skills.

The transition from that kind of ideal junior person to a strong senior person is hard, and I haven’t finished it, but seeing a version of my skills from the other side has taught me that I bring, and have always brought, a great deal to my office.  I think that knowledge  and the ensuing confidence will help me with the transition.

2.  The word “now” is very important. I have not been putting as much effort into improving my marriage as I had hoped I would, but I have been observing it a great deal.  And whatever state my marriage is in is the state it’s in for now.  It won’t always be as it is.   That comes as a tremendous relief, even at this moment, when Daniel and I are getting along very well and being extremely gracious, loving and compassionate with each other.  We are very happy now.  In the future, we will fight again, and I will be angry or bored or careless or inattentive, and so will Daniel, and that will be the “now” at that point.   I used to (still do, sometimes) put so much energy into trying to work out whether we had a good marriage or a flawed marriage, a harder-than-most marriage or an easier-than-most marriage.  There isn’t “our marriage” full stop.  There is our marriage now.

This is a wonderful concept for me.  I want so much to give things a grade and freeze them (this is another one of the downsides of being good at school.)  This impulse feeds my terrible, happiness-eating habit of comparisons with others.  “Now” is my escape hatch, as are its kind sisters “today”, “sometimes”, and “yet.”  Today my body feels stiff and balance is impossible.  But there was yesterday, and there’s likely to be tomorrow, and my body will be different.  Any comparisons are with myself, and that’s kinder.  I’m not professionally where I want to be… yet.  Oh, that yet opens up all kinds of possibility.  It signals that I’m not done.  All these gracious words acknowledge the fluidity of relationships and situations.  This year I have learned that I have more to gain than to lose from fluidity.

3.  Not shopping is more fun than shopping. I’m looking forward to shopping with Daniel next week when we visit my parents (who live in a very good city for shopping).  But solving the puzzle of my closet has been really gratifying.

4. Corollary to 3: If I like then I’ve probably put a ring on it.  Forgive me: I’ve had that line in my head for weeks!  I already have all the important pieces I need, for both practicality and delight.  That means there’s no particular reason to buy anything else (unless it’s amazing), and even more important, no particular reason to save something for a better occasion.  Why buy an inferior version of something that I already have in order to preserve the good one?

5. Style comes from combinations, accessories, and silhouettes, not any particular item of clothing.  This is true for me, at my age, given where I go in the world, and my budget.  This is going to save me from a lot of mistakes — those pieces that seem like a bold and striking departure, but end up as awkward rebukes in my closet.  There are better ways for me to go a little nuts.  This is the most important lesson I’ve learned from Ines.

6. Corollary to 5: the worst mistakes I make are when I try to shift my silhouette dramatically; and bad proportions, rather than any one piece in particular, that make me look frumpy.

7. Corollary to 6: Pants shapes change faster than skirt shapes, so pants can date me more quickly than skirts.  I always look better in skirts than in pants anyway.  There are trends in skirt lengths, too, but a knee length skirt will always, always, always look good.  Pants change, subtly but constantly, in rise, in length, volume.  And pants are less forgiving to subtle but constant changes in my body.

8. If I take cost per wear seriously, I’ll pay more for tshirts than for dresses.  This may be my next fashion challenge: expensive tshirts and cheap dresses.

9. I love our dog.  I meant to write a whole post about this, but I am surprised that I love our dog.  I didn’t want a dog at first.  There were practical reasons, but mainly a dog is very clearly not a second child, yet it requires care, feeding, cleaning up after, and a general reorientation of life around it.  I thought that getting a dog would make me sad or angry because it wasn’t the object of care and attention that I so desperately wanted.  The best case scenario seemed to be anything more than peaceful co-existence.  But I love our dog, and even more surprising, our dog really loves me.

10. I should always do yoga, but I should also do something else.  Yoga has been my sole form of exercise for years.  (I walk a lot but not fast enough or far enough to count as exercise.)  I love it, and I love how much it teaches me about myself.  But I need something more aggressive, more vigorous, more difficult.  I went to another budokon class last week and I was completely overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up and it’s exactly what I need.  I need to give the competitive and aggressive part of myself a place to play.

11.  Fried eggs are indescribably delicious if you cook them over medium low heat.  It’s tempting to reach for profundity here, but it’s late, and this post has taken me almost two hours to write.  I think the theme that emerges from most of what I’ve written is:  love what I have even as it always changes.  Don’t try so hard to be perfect, or to define things, or to be a purist.  I can delight in surprise.  I can withstand changes that I don’t control (arghh!).  Value what I am and have, and let go, let go, let go of what I’m not and don’t.  For now.  Sometimes.

And yet, there is still a place for rules and instructions, and Mark Bittman says cook fried eggs on low to medium heat for no more than 3 minutes, and he is absolutely right.