March

12 Books

In March I read two books: Still Alice by Lisa Genova and Serena by Ron Rash. I loved Still Alice. It’s the story of a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. It was beautifully written; it’s touching and terrifying at the same time. Although I, of course, have never struggled with dementia, I still related to so many the issues of personal identity and how scary the loss of that would feel. I really recommend it. Serena is the story of a couple who runs a timber company in the early 20^th century in the U.S. I give Serena a 6 out of 10. It has some really interesting characters, but the story took a while to go anywhere.

12 Recipes

This month I made fish tacos, which were absolutely delicious! They were so easy and so quick. I think they will be one of my go-to dishes in the future.

12 Blog Posts

Click here for some musings about joy and loneliness. (So, you know, a super light post this month. I’ll try to go back to amusing in April.)

12 Ways to Meet People

This month I went to the Illinois Science Council’s Pi Day Pi K: a 3.14 mile run on March 14. It was a beautiful day, but otherwise kind of a disappointing event. They promised a much more social atmosphere than really happened, so beyond a few minutes of idle chat, I didn’t really get to meet anyone new. I’m still giving myself credit for trying, though. Here’s the shirt – typo and all.

12 Small Steps Forward in my Career

Work on the grant proposal and chapter I mentioned the last two months continue. I also took the time to update my resume, which I hadn’t done in a long time. I rewrote it from the perspective of someone looking for research funding, rather than a job, since that’s what I’ll probably use it for in the immediate future. I chose to be optimistic and also included my two pending grant proposals, one pending talk proposal, and as-yet-unaccepted book chapter. (Highlighted, of course, to be deleted if I send out the resume before those things come to pass.) It was actually pretty gratifying to spell out everything I’ve done over the past 9 years.

12 Fun Events in Chicagoland

This month I went with my friend Carla to The Sing Off Live! We saw three acapella groups perform and had tons of fun. (I also really love this photo.)

12 Crafts and Creations

In March I finally put together a photo book for my trip to Harry Potter world last September. Sadly I have not received the physical book yet, so I can’t post a photo, but here’s a screenshot of one of my favorite spreads.

12 Pretty Things for My Apartment

After some frustrating attempts to find a bedspread or shadowbox frames to hang my mosaics this month, I finally gave up on both of those things and ordered this wall decal on a whim. I couldn’t be more pleased with how it came out! I love it. So pretty!

12 Things that Help Me Feel Good about My Appearance

Early in the month I went with a friend to a beauty event at Nordstrom, and ended up buying $250 worth of makeup. The first picture below is what it looked like when the professional did it. Spending that much money hurt, but it’s been worth it because I feel really good in the makeup. I’ve faithfully worn it every day, and several people have noted that I look nice without knowing exactly what’s different. That’s the sign of a good makeover, I think. I’m really going to try to stick to using it. I also got my haircut again. The second picture below is of the day I got it cut, when it looked especially awesome.

12 Grown-Up Things

For months – perhaps years – I have been pulling stuff out of my medicine cabinet only to have other things fall on me. There was a lot crammed in there, and I knew on some level that most of it was expired, but I never wanted to sort through it. This month I was a grown-up and cleaned out my medicine cabinet, pitching all the old, crusted bottles of nail polish that had separated, a good number of the zillion little sample lotions and shampoos that had built up, and all the expired over-the-counter medications. I don’t even want to tell you how old the oldest thing was… but I will give you a clue and say that the year started with 200 and the last digit rhymed with heaven. (And also tell you that in that year, I did not yet live in this apartment. So… I moved an expired product with me and it has been in my medicine cabinet ever since.) With all the riff-raff out, I was able to reorganize it so I can open the door without anything falling on my head. You know, like a grown up.

Gray area

I live in the gray area.

This is not a commentary on this gray, rainy spring day. It’s not a description of my apartment, which is actually quite colorful. I mean it in the metaphorical sense. Most of the time, no matter what context, there is a way to classify people or things clearly as black or white, or in a this-but-not-that manner. Then there is that one object or person that seems to defy categorization. It’s not black but not white. It sits solidly in the gray area.

That gray area? That’s where I live.

I first started thinking about this issue from a professional perspective. I’m kind of an oddball among my co-workers. Most of the women my age are former teachers. There are a few that haven’t taught, but they all have Ph.D.s, which makes them fall into a researcher category with some of the older members of the development team. I have no classroom experience and no doctoral degree. Instead I have an undergraduate math degree and a strong editorial background. So, while I believe I’m equally valuable to the projects I work on, I am sort of all by myself in the gray area between researcher and practitioner. It doesn’t bother me much on a day-to-day basis, but it does make me wonder where I would go if my current job ends. The teachers can go back teaching, and the researchers can apply for research or faculty positions at other universities. Where would I go?

Once I started thinking about this gray area issue, I realized it’s a good metaphor for a lot of other aspects of my life as well. I had a hard time knowing where to fit in during middle and high school in part because my interests had little overlap with my skills. I loved musical theater, but I don’t have great pitch and am definitely don’t have the athleticism or grace of a stage dancer. I’m really good at math and science has always made instant sense to me, but I’ve never had much interest in solving math problems just for fun or designing my own science experiments. I liked being in the band, but never had enough passion or interest in music as a discipline to put in the kind of practice time I needed to become great. I never really jumped in to any of the groups related to theses things. Instead, I roamed around the gray area between them, visiting many and making plenty of friends, but never really building that core group of friends who had the same passions and interests.

While I was in college, I still did this sort of thing to a certain extent. I did eventually find a core group that I am still close to even now (ten years later, ack), but I still felt like I was flitting around the gray area instead of committing to anything. I was a math major, but I didn’t really meet anyone in my department until I was a senior. It never occurred to me to try to get a TA position or anything specifically math related before that. I had picked math as a specialty, but it wasn’t an interest of mine, per se. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew it wasn’t a research mathematician. So I hung out with English majors and education majors and music majors and theater majors. They were all good friends to me, but because they shared more experiences with each other through classes and events, I ended up out on the periphery. I felt this at the time, even if I couldn’t articulate it. I was not in that core group. I was out in the gray area. Not unwelcome, but not exactly belonging.

Then I ended up in Chicago and tried out a lot of different ways to meet people. At first I tried the bar scene, but quickly found out I wasn’t a big fan. Then I spent a lot of time at home watching movies and the like, but I got bored with that quickly. I wanted to go out, but only for two hours or so. Then I wanted to be able to leave, without guilt or awkwardness, and go home and gossip on my couch before going to bed. But people tended to be at one extreme or the other. They either stayed at bars until 2:00 in the morning, or stayed home. I preferred the gray area in between.

Later on, figuring out that it wasn’t the two hours at the bar I wanted so much as just two hours out of the house, I looked into clubs for various things I was interested in. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, so I tried out some of the fan club stuff. I found out I was not such a huge fan, when considering the full scale. I loved the books and movies, but had no interest in writing fan fiction or going to wizard rock concerts. I was only a medium fan, in the middle. It was the same for Scrabble. I like to play, but really don’t care about the triple word score. I find it more interesting to play the cool word for 10 points than the boring 2-letter word no one knows for 50 points. I wasn’t a real Scrabble player. And it’s again the same for running. I liked to run, and even to do races, but run a marathon every year? Forget it! I’ll stick to my 3-to-10 milers, thanks. I’m cool here in the gray area, halfway between occasional 5K-er and serial marathoner.

So, anyway. Lately I am finding the gray area to be a nice metaphor for understanding why, despite being involved in many things, I still ended up as a loner. People often (usually?) connect through shared passions. But the truth is, I don’t have any passions. Or, maybe I do, but they are for things I can’t do very well, like sing show tunes or acapella music. I either don’t care enough to have that shared passion, or I’m not good enough at something to really participate. That’s why I can’t get out of the gray area.

Ever since I found a way to articulate this, I’ve been sorting out how I feel about it. I know it makes me a little sad, but I couldn’t really describe why. It means I spend more time by myself than the average person, but I’m ok with that. That doesn’t make me sad just on its own. So what does?

I had a bit of an epiphany last weekend as I stood listening to an acapella group rock out so some song or another. I was happy, bubbly, having a great time, and as I watched them perform, I thought to myself that they were very clearly having a good time too. I felt their joy. And that’s when it hit me.

I experience a lot of my joy vicariously.

I am sincere when I say that I felt joyful at that moment. I really did. But I came to the realization that I was simply sharing their joy. That kind of thing can be wonderful, but it is not the same as feeling your own joy. This will sound like a bit of a pity party, and I don’t mean for it to be, but at that moment, I realized that I feel very little of my own, personal joy.

For years I’ve been watching my friends and colleagues start relationships, get married, buy houses, have children, and a host of other momentous life-changing things. I have been happy for them. I mean it. I have. I’ve never been in a super resentful place. But there has always been a sadness underneath. I always thought it was because I felt like they were moving on without me, but even that didn’t entirely make sense because so many of them remained in my life even after they got married or had children or moved. There was something else.

Now I think I understand what it is. When something amazing happens to a friend, I feel joy for them. I really do. But it’s vicarious joy, and at some point I come to terms with the fact that it’s not my own personal joy that I can carry with me. I feel it, which is wonderful. And then I lose it, which is lonely. I’m not really in the circle where the joy is happening. I am watching from the gray area.

I think that loneliness is what I fear most about still being single. Not the loneliness of being by myself on a Saturday night. That part honestly bothers me very little. It’s the fear of being in the gray area forever, and never having my own joy that I get to keep. I’m not lonely when I’m alone. I’m lonely when I am with other people, watching from the gray area.

There’s one thing that gives me some hope, though. Once in my life, I was in love. (That’s not the thing that gives me hope. I’m not that girl. Keep reading.) And I told that guy once that I was sad that I didn’t have a passion. He told me I was wrong. He said I was passionate about honesty and friendship – two of the best passions anyone could have. He was right, and later, it occurred to me that I was also passionate about him. I think I could also be passionate about someone else.

I’m not miserable. Truly I am not. But I do hope that someone, someday, comes along that is patient enough to stick around and see that kind of passion come out in me. It’s not like music or technology or education. It’s not something you discuss on a first date. It’s something to be understood and discovered over time. Maybe if someone is patient enough, he’ll see that passion and pull my out of my gray area into his inner circle, where the joy is something we get to keep.

Maybe, and maybe not. In the meantime, to whoever reads this: thank you for sharing your joy with me.

February

12 Books

February’s book was House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. It’s the story of an Iranian man living in the U.S. who buys a house at an auction, only later to find out that the house was wrongly seized from its original owner. The book chronicles the interactions between the Iranian man, the original owner of the house, and her married lover. Overall, I give this book a 7. I was interested to see what happened to the characters, and I rather enjoyed the narrative style of the writing. But the story felt slightly exaggerated, as if the author was trying to make sure there was enough to discuss at a book club. Plus, like January’s book, the ending was wretchedly depressing.

12 Recipes

This month I made southwestern meatloaf. It didn’t look all that appetizing when it first came out of the oven, but looked nice on a sandwich. I’ve eaten it without bread with a little lettuce, tomato, and sour cream too.  It gets a 6 out of 10 for flavor, but a 10 out of 10 for easiness. It’s definitely something I’d make again as an alternative to my usual lineup of quick dinners of pasta, pot roast, and baked chicken.

12 Blog Posts

Click here to read about my weekly trivia escapades.

12 Ways to Meet People

This month I went to the 5-year anniversary party for an organization called New Life for Old Bags. They flatten, cut, and loop old plastic bags into “plarn” that is then crocheted into sleeping mats for the homeless. I made an effort to talk to some new people there. The crowd was, unsurprisingly, made up of mostly middle-aged to older women, but I still enjoyed talking to them all. And I very much enjoy making the mats! Here is a picture of my latest one.

12 Small Steps Forward in my Career

This month I agreed to act as the lead author on an article my team is submitting to an annual publication by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. There is no guarantee it will be accepted, of course, but if it is selected for the book, it will be great to have my name on a published work.

12 Fun Events in Chicagoland

My sister and I went to Medieval Times in Schaumberg. This is a bit of a cheat because we went on January 30, but I’m counting it for February anyway, since it’s a short month. We had the BEST time. Our green knight did not win, but he did slap the red knight right off his horse using a gauntlet, so he’s a winner in my book.

12 Crafts and Creations

For six weeks in January into February, I took a glass mosaics class at the Chicago Mosaic School. We did one stained glass project and one smalti project. Mine are shown here. I particularly like the stained glass birdie, though I am happy with how they both turned out.

12 Pretty Things for My Apartment

I bought this super pretty butterfly LED light for my window.

12 Things that Help Me Feel Good about My Appearance

Despite the fact that my eyebrows are super light and not noticeable by anyone but me, I’ve wanted for a while to get them waxed. I just felt like they looked messy. So, with the help of a friend, I got that done this month. Unsurprisingly, no one noticed. Even I can’t really tell the difference between the before and after photos below. But the point is, I did it, and it made me feel better to have done so. Plus, I also got a no-chip pedicure.

12 Grown-Up Things

My grown-up thing for this month was filing my taxes. Granted, this is something I’ve been doing for many years now, but I am counting it anyway. It’s an annoying, soul-sucking experience worthy of recognition of some sort.

Trivia

There is a bar about three blocks from my apartment building. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll call it…. Johnny Blue’s. It’s a sports bar, and therefore not really my scene. Yet when I walk in on a Wednesday night, the hostess looks at me, flicks her head toward the back, and says, “They’re back there.” Yes, I have become a regular at a sports bar. However, it’s not because I have any interest whatsoever in sports. It’s because Wednesday night is trivia night at Johnny Blue’s.

A number of things might suggest that I am good at winning trivia contests. I’ve always been an academic achiever, and at the risk of sounding conceited, I’ll say that the term “smart” has oft been applied to me over the course of my life. My team and I have been going to trivia night almost every week for about a year, which may also suggest that we have some level of success to bring us back.

But the truth is, we seldom win. I, personally, am definitely not a big asset. I know nothing about sports and only a tiny sliver of stuff about popular music. World history? Geography? Anything beyond basic science? Forget it! (I can throw down in categories about musicals, Harry Potter, and math, but wouldn’t you know it? Those categories don’t come up very often.) It doesn’t help that we’re not a particularly well-rounded team, either. Mostly, we have the same interests and strengths. We also have a really bad habit of building up a decent score and then blowing everything on the final question. We did win last week, but that was only because no one got the final question right and we bet the fewest points. Success through failure, as it were.

So, it’s not the winnings that keep us coming back. So what does? It isn’t really about the trivia, folks – at least not for me. I keep coming back because it’s so. Freaking. Funny. I don’t think there’s anything that makes me laugh more than a trivia night with my team.

To give you a sense of what trivia night is like with my friends, I present to you the following eight scenes from our table at Johnny Blue’s. To protect the innocent, I will not attribute any utterances to specific team members except when I occasionally admit I was the one saying stupid things. The others know who they are.

Scene 1:

We have just been asked, “Three movies on which Robin Williams is credited have earned more than $200 million at the domestic box office alone. Name two of them.”

“Aladdin. Definitely. But what else?”

“Good Will Hunting?”

“No, that’s too obscene. It’s probably stuff that’s more family friendly. That way anyone goes to see it and it earns more.”

“That makes sense. What about Night at the Museum?”

Me: “No, that’s can’t be it.”

Them: “Why?”

Me: “That is a stupid movie. It can’t be that popular.”

Them: “I really think it is.”

(I concede and turn in Aladdin and Night at the Museum. They turn out to be correct answers, along with Mrs. Doubtfire.)

Them: “See?”

Me: “Yeah, yeah. I forgot that America is stupid.”

Scene 2:

We have just been asked, “In what east coast city was Bell Telephone Company founded?”

“I have no idea. What are some east coast cities? Boston?”

“Yeah. What else? Philadelphia?”

“I don’t really think of that as an east coast city.”

“Didn’t it become Bell Atlantic? What about Atlantic City?”

“Or Atlanta?”

“Again, not really an east coast city.”

“Right. OK, but I still think Philadelphia.”

“I’m just not convinced that’s east coast. Jersey’s in the way, right?”

“Oh! Jersey! Is it Jersey?”

“Ok, Jersey is not even a city. I guess I’ll settle for answering Philadelphia.”

(The correct answer is Boston. First instincts: never trusted, almost always right.)

Scene 3:

We have just been asked, “What artist sang Mambo #5?”

We knew the answer to this one was Lou Bega, so we used the deliberation time to draw all the women named in the song on our answer sheet in hopes of getting a bonus point. Not only did we get one, but we were featured on the host’s facebook page as the drawing of the week! Holla!

Scene 4:

We have just been asked to look at a series of photos and tell whether each of the men pictured had ever been the President of the United States.

“These are all old white men. Who can tell the difference? Sure, I guess this one is President Oatmeal.”

Scene 5:

(This one did not take place at Johnny Blue’s – it was too long ago – but it did include some of my current team members and it’s too funny to leave out.) We have just been asked, “What is the common street name of the drug psilocybin?”

“Um, I have no idea. Which one is smack?”

“I thought that was cocaine. Wait, are crack and smack the same?”

“What about X? Isn’t there an X?”

“Yeah, but there’s also like C and D, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I think they sing about those in RENT. Let’s think about RENT lyrics.”

(The correct answer, by the way, is mushrooms. And no, we did not get that right.)

Scene 6:

We have just been asked, “Damascus is the capital of what Middle Eastern country?”

“Jordan. I think it’s Jordan.”

“Yeah, me too. That’s what I was thinking.”

“Wait, what if it’s Syria? Could it be Syria?”

“Nah, if it were in Syria we would be hearing about it on the news and know for sure.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Ok, let’s go with Jordan.”

Host: “Damascus is the capital of Syria.”

Us: “Oh. Maybe we should start watching the news.”

Scene 7:

We have just been asked to guess the names of bands based on rebuses. One of the rebuses shows hands counting 1, 2, 3, 4 and a set of black birds.

“NUMBER BIRDS!”

(short silence)

“Um, I think it’s Counting Crows. Is Number Birds a band?”

“No. No. Sorry, I just got excited.”

Scene 8:

We have just been asked, “What author published The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pen name Robert Galbraith?”

(We have no idea and so start thinking about what we could submit as a funny incorrect answer that might get us a bonus point.)

“How about Shakespeare?”

“Or Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is always funny.”

“Agatha Christie.”

“How about J.K. Rowling?”

“Ha! Yes! J.K. Rowling! Harry Potter is the answer to everything!”

(We turn in J.K. Rowling.)

Host: “The correct answer is J.K. Rowling.”

Us: “Ha ha. Nice try.”

Host: “Really.”

Us: “Oh.” (pause) “Best backfired attempt to be funny EVER!”

I know these scenes are not nearly as funny to everyone else (except maybe my teammates) as they are to me. Writing them down does not do them justice, even for me. But still, I’m glad I took the time to write some of them down, because they are absolutely, without a doubt, some of my favorite memories.

When I first moved to Chicago, I came kind of kicking and screaming. The idea of living in a big city, not knowing anyone, scared me. However, once I settled in to life here, I started to have some hopes for my future that living in the city made possible. In particular, I hoped one day I’d have a group of friends that I would meet for mimosa brunches and fancy drinks at bars, a la Sex and the City. I understand now that I’ll probably never have the means to be quite so fancy as Carrie and the gang, but every time the Johnny Blue’s hostess cocks her head and says, “They’re back there,” I know I’ve gotten the most important parts of what I was really searching for. I have friends that meet me out once a week to laugh, commiserate, and just generally enjoy each other’s company.

As I said in my last post, I’m not so thrilled to still be stuck in this place in my life. I want to move forward, or at least feel like it’s possible to move forward some day. But however long this part of my life lasts, and I’ll always remember trivia nights as the diamonds in one of my roughest patches. I’ll always be grateful to my teammates, who are the Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda to my Carrie and have made one of my silly 22-year-old dreams a reality.

Thanks, girls. See you Wednesday.

January

12 Books

January’s book was One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. It tells the story of May Dodd, one of the women who volunteered to help fulfill a fictional treaty between president Grant and the chief of the Cheyenne that outlined a trade of one thousand white women for one thousand horses. The white women were to marry Cheyenne men and bear their children to help them assimilate into a white society. The premise was interesting, and I was invested enough in the story to see it through to the end. However, this book won’t make my favorites list. I found a lot of the characters to be overly stereotyped and the ending to be wretchedly depressing and abrupt.

12 Recipes

This month I made spinach and squash lasagna. The end result was, shall we say, rough around the edges. The noodles stuck together and the sauce was too thin, but in the end, it was edible and really rather tasty. I will take it as my first try.

12 Blog Posts

Click here to read an explanation of why I started this project and why I chose the categories I did. It’s my first post in a long time, and not my best work, but I thought was important to post it anyway.

12 Ways to Meet People

This month, I went to a talk sponsored by the Illinois Science Council, an organization dedicated to putting on events for lay people interested in science. There are many organizations that do such things for the arts (so explained the organizer), but very few for science. The talk was about how physical movement contributes to learning. It was interesting and a broad mix of people. I hope to go to more such events in the coming year. In particular, they have one coming up on the chemistry of spirits (as in alcohol, not ghosts).

12 Small Steps Forward in my Career

In January I made some efforts to find out about new projects that are starting at my workplace. I went to a planning meeting about some new grants I feel that I could contribute to developing and writing. I’m hoping this leads to new opportunities that build on other work I’ve done in the past.

12 Fun Events in Chicagoland

On January 25, the day before my birthday, 10 friends and I completed a room escape adventure! We were locked in a room with a zombie and had to solve puzzles to get out. We did a similar room last year, and did not escape, but this year we got out with 16 minutes to spare! It was great fun.

12 Crafts and Creations

This month, I made these fun flip mittens for my dear friend, Shannon. They feature a flippy thumb for easy texting, fleece lining for warm fingers, and a pretty flower decoration that doubles as a button hole to hold the finger flippy part back! I’m particularly proud of these because I designed the flower decoration myself, with no pattern, and more importantly because Shannon liked them.

12 Pretty Things for My Apartment

Here are my new, brightly colored shower curtain and towels!

12 Things that Help Me Feel Good about My Appearance

My generous friend Alicia gave me a prepaid haircut for a Christmas and birthday gift! I got it cut the weekend of my birthday. Here’s a photo of my new look. I also pre-paid my next four appointments in an effort to make sure I keep up on my haircuts.

12 Grown-Up Things

I spent several hours one afternoon getting a handle on my retirement savings. I won’t pretend to understand everything, but at least now I know what accounts I have, what I and my employer contribute to them, which investment companies hold the accounts, and roughly what I can expect to have at retirement if I continue to make the same contributions until age 65. In a few years, once my student loans are paid off, I can go to a financial planner to rethink my investments, but for now I am satisfied.

The project begins

It’s common for people to talk about different chapters of their lives. Personally, I’ve always thought of my life more as a set of short stories. The sections of my life that most people would call chapters – high school, undergrad, the year I spent at my first job, graduate school – have always felt disconnected from each other. The ways I spent my time, the people I hung out with, the things I was trying to accomplish were all so different. This is true of many people, I suppose, but my beginnings and endings have always felt particularly sharp and well defined.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that this isn’t just a result of my circumstances. It’s a choice that I make. Not a conscious choice, maybe, but a choice nonetheless. I’ve always been eager to experience new things, and the only way to do that is to let go of some of the old. In that sense, clean transitions are a positive thing. But letting go isn’t easy, especially for a sentimentalist like me. Consequently, I’ll often start dreading an ending far, far before it comes. During my senior year of high school, I spent my whole last semester in a state of mortal terror at the thought of graduating and moving on. At the end of my years as an undergraduate, I cried nearly every day as I thought about moving away from my friends. “We’ll still be in touch, Katie,” one of those friends said to me one day. “Lots of things will be different, but some things won’t change.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I have always cut myself off from my past.”

And that’s true. I have gotten better at letting some familiar threads run through different stages of my life. For example, I’m still in consistent touch with a few of my friends that were regular characters in my life’s short stories that took place a decade ago.  But I still find a kind of satisfaction in ending one story and starting a new one. It’s how I measure progress.

My current story is a relatively tame one. I’m living in an apartment that’s not falling apart but not super nice, either. I’m doing work that I enjoy, but not exactly making the big bucks. I’m having fun with friends and taking care of my cat and steadily paying off my student loans. It’s a comfortable story, and for quite some time, I was happily living it. But one day in the middle of 2014 I realized that I’d been stuck in the same story for over 5 years, and I had absolutely no idea how to end it and start a new one. I was watching friends get married, have kids, land new and better jobs, buy houses, and all sorts of other things that signify moving into new chapters and stories. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than for this particular short story to be over. I wanted this part of my life to fade into my past. I wanted a new beginning. For perhaps the first time ever, I was not at all dreading the ending. I wanted this story to end. But I felt powerless to make it happen.

“I can’t just get married,” I thought. “I have to meet a guy first." And despite my best efforts to do that, I still hadn’t. In the end that’s out of my control. I also couldn’t just have a kid on my own (not responsibly, anyway), and I couldn’t afford to buy a house or a condo. I could look for a different job, I supposed, but I knew I was unlikely to find one better suited to me than the one I already had. It wasn’t a new job that I wanted. I wanted to move forward in my current job. A new job wouldn’t start a new story, and in the end neither would something as drastic as picking up and moving to a new city. I’d just be repeating the same story of young-woman-tried-to-establish-herself. I couldn’t see a way to do any of the things that that felt they’d be a true new beginning – a way to end this endless, boring story that this part of my life had become. 

I needed to be more assertive, or more personable, or smarter, or a quicker thinker, or more interested in the kinds of things most people are interested in. But I couldn’t change who I was. It seemed like I was in a story that would last the rest of my life and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

I didn’t want to run any more. I didn't want to read any more. I didn’t want to eat the same foods any more. I didn’t want to do any of the things that had become huge parts of my routine. Mostly I wanted to sit on my couch and stare at the TV (which may or may not have been on). Getting out of bed and going to work got harder and harder until one day I realized I had to do something.

I got help. Maybe one day I will have the courage to write about this part, but for now suffice it to say that I’m grateful to have had family, friends, and doctors who helped me help myself. Over the course of a few months, I gradually dug myself out of the deep pit of depression (yes, I said it, depression) I was in.

Things are not all perfect now. I want to make that clear. I am back to thinking clearly, and to enjoying most of my work, and to laughing, and to seeing joy in day-to-day life.  But I’m still struggling with some of the same issues that made my depression spiral out of control. I still want this story to end and a new one to begin, and I don’t see a clear path to do that. I’m not good at professional networking or meeting new people, and those are the things I need to do to be able to move forward.

Still, one benefit of spending a lot of time alone in the last six months is that I’ve come to understand myself a bit better. I know the things I really enjoy doing and the things that I struggle with the most. I understand now that when I stick to the things I like and am comfortable with, I feel guilty for not trying harder to change my life. When I focus too narrowly on the things that are hard for me, I am generally unhappy and feel like a failure for not making any progress.

So how do I use this new-found understanding to make 2015 a better year than 2014? Early in the year it occurred to me that perhaps a balance between the easy and the difficult might be the answer. I’d be able to spend a lot of my time doing the things I love, but also make sure to push myself to chip away at the work I need to do if I ever want to move on to a new story.

In that spirit, I came up with a project for 2015 that I call 12 Months of Awesome. I chose 10 categories that are spread out over a spectrum with fun things to make me happy at one end and hard things to help me grow at the other. My goal is to do one thing in each of these 10 categories each month of 2015. At the end of the year, I hope to point to 120 small, but significant, accomplishments that make me feel good about the person I am and the story I’m living, whether that is the same story I’m in right now or I’ve managed to start a new one.

It’s a bit ambitious and scary, but I’m committed to really trying.

Without further ado, here are the 12 categories:

Read 12 Books

I used to always be reading something. But as life got more overwhelming, this fell off my priority list, and I hate that. I want to start reading again, so one of my goals is to read a book each month.

Write 12 Blog Posts

I first started writing in an online journal during my time in Sweden, and there have been a few periods in my life since that I’ve written in a blog. I really like to write, but it takes time and effort that I haven’t bothered to put in for a long time. I want to write once a month this year. (I’m counting this essay as January’s post. Kind of meta, hey?)

Try 12 New Recipes

I hate cooking. There are hundreds of other ways I’d rather spend my time. But on the other hand, I’m rather self conscious about the fact that I don’t know how to make anything fancier than pasta or stir fry. So, this year I’m going to attempt one new recipe a month in hopes that as my knowledge and skills build, I gain some sense of appreciation for cooking, and maybe even feel comfortable inviting friends over for dinner some time.

Go to 12 Events Where I Might Meet New People

I’m not very good at making new friends, striking up conversations with strangers, making business contacts, or anything of that sort. Idle conversation is awkward for me. But, the only way I’ll ever get better is if I give myself chances to practice. So, I’m committed to going to twelve events where I have the chance to talk to new people. I’m hoping they will be a variety of things, from professional talks to social mixers.

Take 12 Small Steps Forward in My Career

I love my work. I truly do. But most of the steps forward I have taken, career-wise, have mostly been the result of luck and/or building a reputation for working hard. I didn’t necessarily push forward on my own. I just took opportunities when they were offered to me. That was enough for a long time, but I think I’ve gone as far as I can that way. It’s time to start creating some of my own opportunities. I’m going to do one small thing a month that can help me do that.

Do 12 Things that Real Grown-Ups Do

The title of the category is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But this feeling of being stuck in a boring story is related to the feeling that I have yet to really become an adult. Grown-ups have houses, and families, and lots of other things that I don’t have. I’m still in a just-out-of-college place in many ways. However, I believe I can come up with 12 things that I can do to make me feel like I really am 32 years old and an adult. That’s what this category is about.

Do 12 Things that Help Me Feel Good about My Appearance

I don’t think I’m unattractive. Truly, I don’t. I actually think I’m pretty well put together most of the time. However, I do consider myself a wallflower in most situations. No one seems to notice me. Doing things that make me feel just a little bit more confident and appealing might help me to meet people and assert myself as a valued team member at work.

Attend 12 Fun Events in Chicagoland

As before mentioned, I love experiencing new things. A ton of fun things go on around Chicago that I see advertised and have always wanted to do. Chocolate tours, murder mystery shows, puzzle hunts – all sorts of things. Getting people together to do such things takes work, though, so this year I’m committing to making one of these things happen once a month.

Finish 12 Craft Projects

One thing I’ve learned about myself lately is that I love to create things. I find it so satisfying to make something that wasn’t there before, especially if the thing is useful or pretty (or both!). Yarn crafts, woodworking, mosaics, you name it. I love them all. This year I’m going to make at least one thing a month.

Add 12 Pretty Things to My Apartment

Bright colors make me smile. So I’m treating myself to something new, bright, and pretty to put in my apartment each month, just to keep my spirits up.

So, that’s my 2015 project. I can’t wait to see where it takes me. Look for updates at the end of each month!