Sometimes I make my mind up about things.
And then sometimes I make them happen.
Most of the time, I maintain that I make them happen by working like 100 hours a week and multitasking every moment of the day and most of the night.
Other times I think there’s a little less to it.
My sister has this mantra, or quote, or saying, that she framed,
” Always believe something wonderful is about to happen”.
And whether it’s believing is seeing (by recognizing things as wonderful rather than brushing them off) or seeing is believing (and the possibilities of wonderful gravitate toward you), doesn’t really matter, but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to believe that something wonderful is right around the corner.
When I turned 40 last year, not that any arbitrary deadline ever really matter, but I got it a bit in my head that at 40 I should have a house, and not continue to live in the very real fear that my rental (lovely as it was) would be sold, repurposed, or otherwise needed, and I would be put in the position of finding a new place to live on short notice in a location where rentals are expensive and in short supply.
I also realized that the loft-style church with two half-bathrooms (which truly is better than one full bathroom), no doors (oh, except for to the half-bathrooms) and walls that didn’t quite go to the top didn’t have the privacy that we would probably want as our son enters his teen years and as we love to host guests, no matter what “lie down” space is available.
And so something wonderful came to be.
Now, sure you could say, okay so you decided to buy a house and you did, that’s not really amazing, people do that every day. But when you put in the parameters that we come from a spaghetti beans background, and our Stars Hollow-esque town has maybe a handful of homes under a million dollars for sale at any one time, you may understand that every offer we made was outbid again and again.
There comes a point where you say, “yeah, sure, make an offer…” with your stomach no longer twisting at the thought of how ridiculous the monthly mortgage and interest rates will be, because you always get outbid anyway.
You stop believing it will ever happen
Until, that is, the year is ebbing away, and you are nearing 41 and the universe decides, “you know what, you are right. You are 40 and you deserve doors and walls and even a bathtub. Plus a porch and a backyard that your husband can lose his mind planting a whole forest (orchard?) in, and a garage to fill with all the ridiculous Christmas decor you can find.” Maybe you deserve all of it because maybe you believed something wonderful would happen and the right house would work out (even though you got outbid honestly, but the first buyers pulled out). Maybe the stars aligned and a few other items fell in place, so it all could be possible when it seemed quite impossible.
Beyond getting our house before my arbitrary 41st birthday deadline,
I was recruited for an amazing new job
When I looked at the benefits on the posting, I was amazed at the generous time off package. Still, in the back of my head, I thought, “if only it was one of those companies that do a Holiday shut down for a week” (this has always been my dream benefit, but with the industries I’ve been in, it’s never been in the cards). Still, with the amount of vacation I would have, added to the fact I wouldn’t have a whole team to support, I figured I could take much more time off for the holidays without the guilt of feeling like I was obligating one of my team to cover for me. Before my interview, the recruiter sent a more detailed benefits brochure, and…
Something wonderful happened.
It was as if I had wished it into existence, there was a beautiful line, not alluded to in the job description: “Company closed between Christmas and New Years”.
Into the New Year
So this year, as we roll into our New Years’ season, I remember a tradition we used to do rather religiously and quite seriously. Rather than doing New Year’s resolutions, my family made New Year’s predictions. They would be our best guesses at what would happen next year, not just for ourselves but for each other. They would be serious or hopeful or silly, oddly specific or overly general (those might get shouted down as too easy) and we would write them down and the next year see who “won”, by having the most predictions come true. We would guess who would move where (with military families, that was sort of a given), who would have babies (lots of babies for a while there!), who would buy a Subaru Outback (okay oddly specific), or what family would make it a whole year without a trip to the ER.
Well as the years went by and they were filled with more and more December birthdays (thanks to all those babies, and oddly romantic March months for many of the family apparently), we lost track of our prediction tradition. This year, I’m thinking about taking it up again, maybe as an affirmation, an arbitrary deadline. Not a resolution, with the requirement of work, but a request to the universe…
Perhaps you should join me.
- This coming year, I’ll finish that thing I started since I’ll have more time on my hands.
- This coming year, we’ll finally have that success we have been working toward.
- This coming year, we’ll have a wonderful surprise we never expected.
Sometimes not-so-wonderful things happen.
And surely this year less-than-wonderful things were around the corners too. There were losses and stresses. But believing is seeing, and seeing the wonderful is so healing.
And sure, I work constantly…
…on my work, on myself, on my family, on being a mom, on being a “homemaker”, on being a writer, on the house, on the porch decor and plants, on the forest my husband has planted, on being a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a friend.
And sure, I got the job this year because I’m great at what I do, and I lost 18 pounds this year because I decided to focus on doing just that, and we got the house because we have been working toward making that a reality, but even hard work doesn’t reap regular rewards. Some work is thankless and sometimes feels pointless.
