Thursday, November 08, 2007

Twenty-Six

This past Tuesday I had one of the best birthdays ever. It was a Staff Development Day, which not only meant that there were no children at school, but also meant that I didn't have to be at work until 8:22. That's nearly two hours later than I usually get there!

That night I had a little birthday party at my house. Alan and I made great food, (I managed to shock many guests with a crescent roll concoction and Alan's stuffed mushrooms were awesome), and we had several good rounds of competitive Wii bowling and tennis going between the 15 people who came. I think I hold the record for the most gifts received from Barnes and Noble, and the record for the happiest Barnes and Noble gift reciever. I drank too much Riesling, laughed a ton, and had a great time just hanging out with friends.

My mom has been here for the past week and joined in on the festivities as well. She is also a Wii-lover now. We were bummed that we didn't get to use our Daily Show tickets due to the writer's strike, but we ate at some of my favorite places, did a little bit of wandering, and shopped for several hours at Macy's. Today we barely noticed the cold in our new winter coats.

I stole a birthday tradition from my dear former roommate Keri. Her birthday question is always: What have you learned this year? I love discussing the answer, and I also added a question of my own about what goals I have for the upcoming year. The goal was pretty easy, I want to travel outside of the country. Right now I'm checking out the potential of going to Scotland in June. I will definitely post when things fall into place.

What I learned turned out to be a little trickier than usual. Last year I summed up what I had learned in one sentence, which is always difficult to do. I could joke and say that what I learned this year is that dropping off your laundry for someone else to do is amazing, especially when they fold your undies into those tiny, little squares. But I've been thinking all day about how to narrow down a more serious lesson. And here it is: Being dependent on another person does not make you weak, but in fact can you make you stronger. It may sound trite, but it was a tough lesson for me to learn, and still hard for me to quite believe with my previous insistence on independence at any cost.

1 comment:

Nacho Lover said...

happy belated birthday!! glad it went so well.