January 2022
Well hello, internet! Yes, yes, this girl has plopped herself back into your life and onto your nifty computer screen out of the blue once again! What can I say…I’ve been meaning to blog more regularly but LIFE.
Well…life, yes, but mostly me, too. Well–until now! New year, new me. I am feeling quite optimistic and determined this new year of our Lord. Two Thousand and TWENTY TWO. And no–no cutesy Taylor Swift feeling’ twenty two-isms from this basic white broad, sorry.
I thought it would be nice to have a monthly recap of my going ons, my dear darling internet. So let’s chat January (thank THE HEAVENS this month is almost over. More about my desperation a bit later in this post.)
New Years Eve
Obviously, New Years happened. I was so ready for New Year’s this year. Some years I’m quite “meh” about it and then other years I wear a sparkly somethin’ somethin’.
I was primed for the new slate/blank page that comes with a new year. So much so that on December 26th, I packed away Christmas with gusto. Gone with the hot cocoa, Christmas tree, wrapping paper, all of it went toodle loo! Yes, spring cleaning came a wee bit early. I wanted to organize the hell out of our house, and clean every little corner. In sum, I was anxious and excited for the REBIRTH that January brings.
I credit this sudden new gung-ho impetus to the unexpected advent of my long-standing depression beginning to softly lift its stronghold from my mind. Maybe it’s because so many stressors (wedding/moving/new job/financing a wedding) are completed. But for the first time in a long time, I am charged with vigor and can-do feelings.
I even decorated! But quite frankly, I decorate even in the throes of depression. Duh, I have festive compulsion disorder. Mind you, these pictures were taken while the rest of the house was a complete explosion/disaster of Christmas, but I did manage to get some silver and gold on the tables.
For a less pretty picture…this is all of the candy the Claridge household–which consists of one adult male and one adult female–acquired through the Christmas season. Yikes. David and I are both heavily nostalgic beings, and impulsively bought all the Christmas candy/treats we remembered as kids. It accumulated because…well, we don’t have any kids and two adults can handle SO MUCH SUGAR.
Anyway.
For New Years David and I, ahem:
- Blasted out of Small Town Arizona and spent the holiday weekend in Tucson.
- I bought a sparkly skirt for the occasion, along with a dorky headband and brought my sparkly heels.
- We went out for a nice dinner: The Locale in Tucson. Not too shabby, kids!
- Did lots of shopping because we MUST take advantage of Target/Hobby Lobby/Michaels/Joanns being in our midst. Being a basic broad who lives two hours away from the nearest Target, that is AB-SO-LUTLEY essential. I must confess, I become quite desperate sometimes.
- David spotted this massive two story arcade after dinner, so off we went to fight dinosaurs and zombies with plastic guns amongst teenagers and kids for a few hours.
- We were in bed by ten. I DID set the alarm for midnight to say hello to 2022 but then deliriously slipped back into my REM cycle.
Some pics for your perusal, ahem.
All dressed up for dinnerrrrrrrr.
Huge shout out to myself– besides our wedding day and honeymoon, this is me dressed up for the first in like, what, two years? And you think I’m joking. We’ll leave it at that LMAO.
Ahem, the cliche mirror pic of my new sparkly dress. Cliche hand in hair pose, as well. K-k-k-illling it obviously LMAO.
DINNER! Always down for some food…says the girl who now has a Weight Watchers membership ba ha ha.
Oh look! Pictures of our food!
Like. You. Even. Care.
But! I will say that the dessert (and I rarely order dessert at restaurants which is crazy because I’m definitely a Eat Cake for Breakfast, Eat Dessert First kinda gal, which probably explains for the Weight Watchers membership, oink) was an apricot cheesecake and it was BEYOND.
One of my favorite moments of the evening was checking out the landmark neon Tucson sign on the kitschy/kooky Miracle Mile. Love me some kitsch.
Now Some Thoughts for 2022
I feel like my lifelong angst/quest/struggle/cross to bear/whathaveyou has been this immense need to “get my life together.” In high school as a dorky, lonely teenager I deeply yearned for my adulthood. I obsessed over my future plans when I could blast out of my hometown, become someone, and have a life I was proud of and just, you know, be happy.
But then adulthood came and it was (pardon me) a real BITCH. I feel like my life has been this repetitive cycle of these long holding/waiting periods where I yearn/dream/work for the next chapter, the next chapter being just one smidgen and laborious baby step towards adulthood. Reaching this sense of hmmph! adulthood has been this eternal process it seemed, this pie in the sky. Adding to my anguish was that it seemed so blissfully easy for my peers. Shoot, they’ll be retiring in 12 years with their kids out of their homes and I’ll just be paying off my Ford Focus LMAO.
Each step was so infuriating, with its disappointments and eternal price and process. Each step took a tiny eternity in between. I literally felt like my life and life’s opportunities were furiously racing past me, and I just felt stuck. Very, very stuck.
So are the confessions of your typical washed up statistical Millennial. Every opportunity for change/growth/true blue adulthood came some major social/historical shift for me, like the Recession right as I was trying to make it through college and finding a job paired with the massive dating/marriage crisis of my generation. I could FEEL my ovaries becoming raisins, while I watched girls I used to baby sit have babies of their own.
My twenties and thirties-thus-far have felt like immense emotional turbulence with gasping self-esteem and…plain purgatory. In a way, it was a gentle sort of hell. This being stuck in no man’s land. If I was a lazy couch potato without any pride or gumption, it may have been a breezy experience. But it slaughtered my self esteem, my social skills and eventually, my faith and relationship with God.
In sum, it’s been a damn doozy.
So I’m actually quite nervous to be so blatantly optimistic for once. But…I have this exhilarating feeling that opportunities for that basic/precious/adulthood life are a bit realistic finally? They may be realistic goals vs. hopeless and desperate things to wait for/to pray for.
David and I are both making concrete plans to become teachers. We plan to try for a baby this spring/summer. And we are talking about plans to build our forever home in 3-4 years and plan to save up for that.
Like–these are no longer pipe dreams but actual goals we can realistically work for. And it feels…blissful just to have it be this opportunity.
Along with these goals, I want to work on the insecurities/hurt I’ve collected through my twenties and thus far thirties. I want to get back to a place where I was confident and happy and not so worn down. I want to lose weight (cortisol belly, I beseech thee!), travel to quirky places, wear fun and pretty clothes and lipstick. I want to get back to baking. I want to voraciously read again, before my college years made me so turned off from reading. I want to rejuvenate my brain.
And I want to capture this journey by blogging. Blogging regularly. Giving my humble internet home some light and warmth and life.
So. Those are some of my thoughts on 2022. I guess you could call this my pledge to blog more/live more/heal more.
In sum, yay for sanity! yay for blogging! yay for 2022!
Anyway, my dear darling internet, thank you for always being here to receive my random thoughts and fuzzy pictures. I know that you know that I’m not some cook kid Influencer, but you still accept my clumsy sentences anyways.
I love you, a bushel and a peck.
Courtney C.
Doris Day Would Love Me 