Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
2011 Resolution: Contentment
My first resolution was to spend less money on food and more on clothes. Sam didn't like the second part of that. Actually, upon comparing my clothes budget with his mom's, he made me decrease mine. I've suspected for a while that I spend way too much on groceries, although we rarely eat out and prices are very high in this city.
Last year I think I made some sort of resolution about procrastination. Maybe I will get around to starting that this year. ;-)
When I think about all of the ways in which I could improve, I'm realizing that a lack of contentment may be at the bottom of a lot of things. If I could become content with the place I'm at in life at this moment - a graduate student, with graduate-level work even if I still feel like an undergraduate, living on a graduate stipend, in a small one-bedroom apartment, with a very new set of friends, with a husband who is definitely a boy and not one of my girlfriends, with a social life that doesn't really require half of the dresses in my closet, and in a city that just isn't south of the Mason-Dixon line - maybe I wouldn't need so many of the other resolutions. Maybe I would be content to do my homework and papers early, even if doing them doesn't make me feel like one of the smart kids anymore. Maybe I would start buying only clothes that are actually practical for my lifestyle. Maybe I wouldn't bother Sam with questions about whether he likes my new hat (he didn't, by the way, but I do). Maybe I would quit looking at decorating magazines.
I've definitely found out that the grass-is-greener phenomenon happens to me. Sam and I spent 17 days in Texas for my brother's wedding, Christmas, and New Year's, and I realized that Texas is not the Utopia I pretend it is sometimes when New York gets frustrating. Actually, I even missed New York while I was there, so maybe I've turned some sort of corner. Texas - especially in the southern part - is very humid and warm, even at Christmas, and most of the restaurants are chains. I missed my little flower stands (at which you can get gerbera daisies even in January!) and cheap pizza and good Thai food. Maybe not so much the subway, but I did miss being able to walk to many of the places I needed to go.
In reality I had every reason in the world to be content, even before I got my Christmas loot. ;-) I have the best friends and family ever, and I seem to be lucky in finding more people like them even when I move away. And now, I have the grandfather of all Greek dictionaries, which has been termed by clever Classicists as the "Great Scott." (There are three dictionaries by Liddell and Scott, and the smallest is the Little Liddell, and the medium one is the Middle Liddell, and now I have the Great Scott.) And I have the cutest little red food processor, which looks great next to its mommy, the Kitchenaid mixer, and a date with Sam at the Irish Repertoiry Theater. And lots of new books, including one rather hard-to-find book in which C.S. Lewis writes not just popular stuff but literary criticism.
And I don't have a cat, which would get hair everywhere, or a puppy, which would be smelly and needy, or a baby, who would change everything. And for now, apparently, that is all for the best.
Last year I think I made some sort of resolution about procrastination. Maybe I will get around to starting that this year. ;-)
When I think about all of the ways in which I could improve, I'm realizing that a lack of contentment may be at the bottom of a lot of things. If I could become content with the place I'm at in life at this moment - a graduate student, with graduate-level work even if I still feel like an undergraduate, living on a graduate stipend, in a small one-bedroom apartment, with a very new set of friends, with a husband who is definitely a boy and not one of my girlfriends, with a social life that doesn't really require half of the dresses in my closet, and in a city that just isn't south of the Mason-Dixon line - maybe I wouldn't need so many of the other resolutions. Maybe I would be content to do my homework and papers early, even if doing them doesn't make me feel like one of the smart kids anymore. Maybe I would start buying only clothes that are actually practical for my lifestyle. Maybe I wouldn't bother Sam with questions about whether he likes my new hat (he didn't, by the way, but I do). Maybe I would quit looking at decorating magazines.
I've definitely found out that the grass-is-greener phenomenon happens to me. Sam and I spent 17 days in Texas for my brother's wedding, Christmas, and New Year's, and I realized that Texas is not the Utopia I pretend it is sometimes when New York gets frustrating. Actually, I even missed New York while I was there, so maybe I've turned some sort of corner. Texas - especially in the southern part - is very humid and warm, even at Christmas, and most of the restaurants are chains. I missed my little flower stands (at which you can get gerbera daisies even in January!) and cheap pizza and good Thai food. Maybe not so much the subway, but I did miss being able to walk to many of the places I needed to go.
In reality I had every reason in the world to be content, even before I got my Christmas loot. ;-) I have the best friends and family ever, and I seem to be lucky in finding more people like them even when I move away. And now, I have the grandfather of all Greek dictionaries, which has been termed by clever Classicists as the "Great Scott." (There are three dictionaries by Liddell and Scott, and the smallest is the Little Liddell, and the medium one is the Middle Liddell, and now I have the Great Scott.) And I have the cutest little red food processor, which looks great next to its mommy, the Kitchenaid mixer, and a date with Sam at the Irish Repertoiry Theater. And lots of new books, including one rather hard-to-find book in which C.S. Lewis writes not just popular stuff but literary criticism.
And I don't have a cat, which would get hair everywhere, or a puppy, which would be smelly and needy, or a baby, who would change everything. And for now, apparently, that is all for the best.
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