10 Things I Learned In 2011 (New Year’s, Part I)

Hooray! You are lucky, because although I’m still sick, I started working on this year-evaluation a long time ago. So it may bear some semblance to being coherent.

Also, to all you Christians and secular-celebraters out there: Merry Christmas! To all you Jews: Happy Hannukah! To everyone else: … ‘sup?

Just kidding, have a great holiday season, whether the holiday you enjoy is religious, cultural, or statutory. See you in 2012!

1. My style is short hair.

No matter how many ways I tried to phrase this idea while typing out this item, it still sounds weird. But I mean it: I don’t want to wear my hair long again. It was a fun experiment, and I guess it helped me prove something to myself or whatever, I dunno. But it’s not me. I don’t like taking ages to shampoo and condition, agonizing over getting my hair out of my face for almost everything, or just feeling all that weight dragging me down. I’d rather be the me I picture in my head.

2. There is such a thing as too much “yes”.

Back at the end of 2009, I wrote that one of the things I’d learned was how to say “yes” to social invitations even if I didn’t feel like accepting them. This year, I’ve learned that enforcing that knowledge 100% can be detrimental to my physical and mental health. I don’t mean I’m doing a 180: I’m still well aware of the difference between not accepting invitations because I’m lazy or shy and not accepting invitations because I need some alone time. There are lots of awesome people with whom I’d like to be better friends, but there are also lots of awesome people whom I see on a regular basis. I hardly ever feel lonely, like I sometimes used to in first year, but I often feel rushed, overbooked, and tired. So with that in mind, I’ve decided it’s OK to relax by myself once in a while.

3. I need protein.

I am reticent to acknowledge that my cousin M. is partly right: first, because he’ll never read this anyways; second, because I’m pretty sure that if he did, he would somehow not read the “partly”; and third, because I still don’t think his absolutely-NO-carbs-ALWAYS-protein diet is a good idea. But once I switched the carbs out of my diet for Passover this spring, I realized that I was eating way too many of them and not enough meat, especially for someone who goes to the gym every weekday (although not always — see #4). So now I make sure to have some sort of egg dish for breakfast and meat or fish for dinner, always. No more resorting to spaghetti-and-seasonings for a quick meal.

4. It’s OK to skip out on the gym once in a while…

There was a point in the summer when I was going to the gym every weekday morning for either cardio or strength training; taking acrobatics lessons on Sunday afternoons; and playing three ball hockey games each week, as well as walking everywhere, including the 90-minute return trip to one of those hockey games. The more exercise, the better, I naively thought. Besides, if I miss even one installment of my regular routine, my muscles will atrophy back into the can’t-lift-the-default-weight shrivelled nothingness they were to start.

FALSE.

Okay, it’s partly true that I won’t rack up the weights as fast as I could if I take a break every once in a while instead of doing the circuit 2-3 times a week. But I forgot: the whole point of doing the weights in the first place was to have more strength to do the things I enjoy, like playing hockey and learning new skills, and to feel better and more energetic every day. If I’m collapsing into naptime every afternoon, I’m not getting what I want out of my gym routine. So I have to pay attention, and learn to relax when I need it (but not when I’m just feeling lazy — admittedly, distinguishing between the two is the difficult part.)

5. … but it’s not OK to skip out on eating properly, even on holidays and weekends.

So I learned this after attending one disastrous acro class after wolfing down a slice of quiche and an apple and having eaten nothing but chocolate and candy the day before (OK, well, and spaghetti, too). I don’t mean I got hurt or anything — I just felt like I was wasting everyone’s time, my own and the instructor’s, since I was too tired and sloppy to actually do anything properly. Lesson learned.

6. The Farmer’s Market is awesome!

It is! Everything is both cheaper and yummier than usual, with the possible exception of Christmas trees. You’ll have to excuse me on that one, I’m Jewish, so I don’t know how they’re supposed to taste.

7. No matter how much I love homemade iced tea, if I put it in a mug, my brain will consider it to be hot tea that has cooled down until it is gross.

No comment.

8. How to make a pie crust.

You know what makes me feel good? Having protein at breakfast. You know what is convenient and yummy breakfast protein? Quiche made every weekend! You know what eggs, strawberries, and chicken have in common? They all (separately!) make excellent pie fillings, and I love pies made with them!

Also, once I learned how to use a butter puncher (OK, OK, it’s properly called a pastry knife), and what the intended outcome was, making piecrust became a cinch.

9. I’m more afraid to have false pretences than to be imperfect.

I’m still embarrassed by the event that kicked this one off: getting scammed out of $260 on the subway. Don’t worry, the damage to my dignity was much harder to deal with than the damage to my bank book, and there are lots worse things to lose than cash.

I’m most ashamed because this was the result not of one giant mistake but of lots of little mistakes, including the initial decision to go to hockey practice — travelling alone — while I was sick enough that I was supposed to be in bed, resting. And I can’t help going over every moment of the con artist’s spiel, wishing I’d been able figure out how to act on the vague feeling of wanting to get away, thinking with the help of perspective how easily I could have done so if I’d behaved just a little differently.

But in the end (which is why I’m writing about it here) I’m more ashamed by the temptation to keep this dumb thing I did a secret. I feel like if I don’t tell people I know what happened — how badly I screwed up — or if I blame everything unfairly on my illness, then whatever respect they might have for me, for my integrity or intelligence, is somehow invalid. I know that’s not true, but knowing isn’t the same as feeling, and in the end, I’m glad ‘ve grown enough to share my mistakes.

When I was in elementary school, because my identity was so tied up with being “the smart kid,” bombing a quiz or missing a spelling word threatened my sense of self-worth. It felt like suddenly the only quality that other people might like about me was being challenged.

I still wish (doesn’t everyone?) that I could keep the same level of risk in my life without making mistakes, but that’s impossible. So instead of being someone who doesn’t take enough chances to make mistakes, or who pretends mistakes never happened, I’m proud I can at least work towards being someone who learns to deal with them — and someone who’s confident enough to know that she has more to offer the world than a semblance of perfection.

10. My body does not need to be regulated.

I saved this one for last because it’s sort of medical-full-disclosure (OK, not really that bad, but still), so you can skip it without having to figure out how far to scroll.

Still here? Then you asked for it. When I was a teenager, I had problems having a regular menstrual cycle, so my doctor put me on the pill. The idea was that I would go off it again after a few months once my body had been “kick-started”, but I had some vague idea that if I ever decided to stop taking it, my body would immediately go back to its anarchic reign of terror and do something even crazier — I dunno, maybe DOUBLE puberty? Long story short, I kept taking it until this summer when I decided, hey, enough is enough. And guess what? So far, no double puberty.

There were a lot of notes on which I thought I might end 2011, but I have to say that wasn’t the one I expected. In any case, happy New Year, and see you in 2012, when I hope your memory of these things I actually learned will camouflage how bad I am at learning the things I said I would last New Year’s!