self portrait

The year has passed so quickly, actually the decade has gone by in a flash. Introspection is sometimes very painful to me - especially when I feel that I could do more...post-baby, I've harbored a nagging suspicion that I'd possibly kissed my career good-bye because I was away from my work for so long. It was when I was making Christmas eve dinner that I realized I was in a postnatal fog for a good 9 months. Nobody told me this - the semi-zombiefied state that persists without my knowledge, a state of which my husband swears I don't listen to him anymore, a state which I find myself unable to chat with someone on a schmoozing basis, a very inward-looking state that I'm not even sure if I can explain it. So here goes, with the farewell of 2009, I need to face it squarely: how do I feel about the past decade? I'm not sure. I was in my twenties at the beginning of a decade, through it, I lived in a different country, worked in a different country, went to grad school, got a phd, found the love of my life, got married, had a baby, was baptized and became a homeowner (technically, we only put a downpayment for our first apartment). and ended up in my thirties. the marriage and baby part, i had not planned, who knew when/how one would find true love? the grad school, the downpayment, the baptism - those i'd a small conscious role in. so looking back, it wasn't too bad - a late bloomer but I eventually grew up.

moving forward, i'm not entirely sure what to expect. mother, wife, daughter, researcher, teacher. these are the roles i've come to assume and they have gotten somewhat complex. i've always admired those folks that made it big and made it look so simple by being so genuinely humble about stuff and they talk to people big and small alike - with a lot of respect and good humor. in a big picture sort of way, i want to be like that and want to create resolutions so that i can be like that. but of course, i really can't think up any resolutions to fit my aspiration. in fact, resolutions are really pie in the sky for me, i hardly keep them and by the end of the year, i don't remember where i wrote them down...tsk tsk...like any self portrait, we hardly get it right the first time, or the second...