A Thank You

As I've probably mentioned here at some point previously (or some pointS, knowing me), my first job out of college was as an English teacher at a boarding school for kids with ADD and ADHD. One of the students I taught there really got under my skin. Actually, several of them did, but there was one in particular who drove me right up a wall. Not that I didn't like him - I did, but he was infuriating in his absolute refusal to follow any sort of instruction or to live up to his potential in any way. He was almost certainly among the smartest students I taught, but he would have been damned before letting on to anyone, most of the time.

The one exception, the one time he opened his mind and showed me its beauty and power, was when we read The Catcher in the Rye. He started off by saying, "I like this book. I like Holden. I can relate." And from there, he went on to offer some truly insightful commentary on the novel, and his theories on Salinger's thought process. It was probably the most amazing and triumphant moment I had as a teacher.

Much like Holden Caulfield, this boy let his alienation and angst get the best of him and ended up getting himself booted from the school. I never heard from him again and I have no idea what became of him. I hope it's something good. But for that one unit, I felt like I was getting somewhere with him, and I knew enough about his background to know he needed that. So, I like to hope that wherever he is, he has positive memories of learning, thanks to JD Salinger's brilliance. And I hope that JD Salinger has finally achieved peace from his own angst tonight.

Conflicted

I feel conflicted about the Senate election that just went to Scott Brown here in MA. I'm still registered in New Hampshire because that is our permanent address, so I didn't vote, and I'm kind of grateful that I couldn't because I didn't really feel comfortable with my options. Martha Coakley did some things as DA and AG that didn't sit well with me, as a voter. And I feel like she threw the election away by being out of touch (calling Curt Schilling a Yankees fan, misspelling the name of the state...). Meanwhile, Scott Brown wants to make IVF non-mandatory for insurance coverage in MA, which frankly enrages me. (It is currently covered.) The third option, Joe Kennedy, received 1% of the vote. So.

And a lot of people on the conservative side of the aisle are taking this election as a referendum on Obama's presidency. And while I do think that is probably part of what happened, I think theres much more to it than that. Americans voted Obama in in 2008 because they were unhappy with the way things were going and they wanted change. And I think that's still coming into play now. This election wasn't a rejection of the Democratic party as much as it was a rejection of the way things have been going. That's just one woman's opinion.

New Year's Resolutions?

I understand the instinct to make New Year's resolutions. You come to the end of one year and the beginning of the next, and it feels like the time to re-set a variety of things in your life. That makes sense to me. Even for people like me, who truly, madly, deeply love the holiday season, it's an exhausting time when you tend to let a lot of the little things slide in favor of the madness. You get busy. If you're like me and work for a financial institution, you get busy at work, as well as at life in general. You likely don't get enough sleep, you're likely spending money like a fiend, you're running yourself ragged in a million different ways. And then, snap! It's over. And you're left with a feeling that you want to get things back in order. So...you make resolutions. They might be quite lofty, or they might be mundane and simple.

Either way, here's the thing about resolutions. They...don't last. I mean, I'm sure I could come up with examples of people who've successfully stuck to their resolutions, if I tried. I'm sure I even have, a time or two. But by and large, as the year goes on, life takes over and the resolutions fade to the background. That's the nature of life.

So, what I like to do instead is to recognize January 1st for what it is - a new beginning. I try to put all my petty grievances of the prior year behind me and start fresh. I try to forgive myself for letting things slide for that last six weeks of the year, and especially for that extra five pounds my mom's and mother in law's delicious holiday eats (not to mention the extra booze) helped me pack on and just say, "Ok. Here's my opportunity for a fresh start."

I try to do this at work, too, of course, but it's harder to implement since returning from the holidays launches us immediately into month-quarter-year-end madness. But I'm trying anyway, because miring myself in negativity doesn't help anyway, so why not focus on the positive? Why not focus on the new department head who actually seems to take an interest in my career development? Why not focus on the opportunities he's already created for me? Why not focus on the potential positives the mentoring I took part in last year may yield as the company begins to recover from the bad times? Heck, why not focus on the fact that, as this new year begins, the company isn't laying off my coworkers every other week?

We'll see how it goes.