HMOH: a look back on 2012

It's easy to lose track of time at the end of every year. Lose track of 5 lbs or a waistline ... and the spend track on your trusty Amex. Too busy getting holiday gifts together, stocking the calendar with parties, potlucks and get-togethers before the dawning of a new year. Too busy stuffing my your face, killing my your liver slowly and enjoying in all the festivities with close friends and family. I, for one, was too busy worrying about when I'd be tan again, when my thyroid will stop letting itself take all the blame for why I can not get back to that goal weight (like, stand up for yourself dude), and if I'm really meant to own twenty cats and die alone.  I really hope not. I hate cats.

So I lost track of time and quite frankly motivation, but today as I walked through Rock Center during lunch and thought about how I'd like to kick out people's knees or shove the next tourist that dead stopped in front me of, I took another moment. I live in the best city on earth with my favorite people on earth (plus or minus a few.) I don't save my money the whole year to travel here for a few days and take in all the sites and sounds. I walk past it every day and instead piss my money away on rent so I can't afford to go anywhere else. I'll typically look back on the year and think about all the things that didn't happen, but what about those great things that did?  And so I got to ruminating on how I have so much to be grateful for. I've done and learned a lot this year.

•  I continued to have the best of times with my best friends, and lean on them for what seemed like the worst of times ... which were sparingly this year.
• I went honky tonk in Nashville, chilled in LA, sailed the Susquahanna, hit the horse races and bourbon in Kentucky. I saw NYC's Ellis Island and enjoyed backyard tourist spots.
• I visited one of my best friends in the world - across the world. Between Facetime chats and virtual tours of her cottage, I was able to pop on a plane (the second one, I missed the first) and see her home away from home before swinging down across the South of France.
• I got a new job. A really great job. One that took a frustratingly long time to land but puts me at the top of my game and allows me to show off all I can do among new people. I also get free beauty products and best-in-class haircare ... and quite frankly, I'm going to thank me some day.
• On that journey to land that job, I took years working with people who will be in my brood of "forever peeps" and I'm thankful for them.
• I saw friends get engaged to and marry the ones they love and bring into the world ones they (and I) couldn't love any more.
• I spent more weekends to myself than at bridal showers, baby showers, bachelorette parties and weddings.
• In those weddings that I did attend, I did so successfully where an ex or an ex of a best friend were there. I may or may not have been successfully whisked away by my father at the end of the night who locked my almost 30-year-old self in a Holiday Inn Express tower "for my own good."
• Through firsthand experience I learned that it's cleansing to put yourself in situations where you may discover the girl who "stole" the boy who stole your heart is busted and he's thankfully all hers.
• I triumphed, I failed, I laughed, I cried, I almost died by suffocation on account of my shredding baby blanket.
• I sewed my first pillow and made my first tiramisu. Things that may seem insignificant, but they're stepping stones to following in my mom's big footsteps.
• I continued to enjoy my two favorite people - my brothers. The only two people in the world who understand MY family. Who can have mature conversations and also still resort to being little shits at times. Who I watched graduate from college or land an awesome new job. Who alongside me got down with our MJ bad selves in a cab, and let me dress them in bowties in the absence of a wedding date.
• I celebrated my birthday with amazing friends - via a bloody mary bar, violin serenades, guacamole and sombreros (which I promptly had them remove once entering a bar.) I have never had a better birthday ... especially since it was the first time I turn 29. Because seriously, there are a lot of 29th birthdays to come.
• I survived a hurricane and a week without power. I was lucky enough to enjoy the time indoors with minimal damage to my home. Again my waistline, liver and missing, favorite pair of sunglasses may think differently.
• I learned that everything deserves a second chance. Little to nothing deserves a third.
• I signed up to be a mentor, to inspire someone to do better and strive for everything. I hope in the coming year I will start to make a real impact on who she becomes. I think she'll make me a better person too. I'm still, however, coming to terms with the fact we're she's not going to Harvard.

So when life gets me down or I selfishly don't understand why some people get things and I don't... SIDENOTE: this, I assume, must stem from when a younger me couldn't get Susie Scribbles because she was too much money and I just didn't understand how we could possibly turn down a doll that WROTE YOUR NAME. Whatever, I bet she had bad handwriting anyways... So right ... when life gets me down, I will take a moment (as we all should) to be excited about everything I do have and for all the happiness that's to come.

I'm not going to say that writing more on this thing is a resolution, because that'd be like me promising you I'm going to the gym every day and I'm no lying fool.  But I do say it every year and I'll say it again ... I've got big plans for this one.  Cheers to spending 2013 doing worthwhile things with those who matter most. To those who you can lose track of time with or if not, and much like this blog, pick right back up where you left off.

-HMOH