Guilt, Regrets, Remorse & Goals… In that order.

I believe in reflection. I’ve been thinking a lot about the way I process things mentally lately. Fall brings with it the need for me to reflect. Like Jimmy Buffett says, “I took a week off just to try to recall the whole year.” Love that song… wish I could remember the name so you could all listen to it with me.

Guilt: What’s worse than guilt? Smugness. Yep, that’s me. I’m smug. A much nastier condition than guilt. Sure, I suffer from typical raised-Catholic guilt. (My grandma could get me to do anything she wanted just by giving me a look.) But, really, when I look at my situation… I’m damn close to having it all. I have a gorgeous home (ok, it only has 2 bedrooms & 1 bathroom, pink countertops, peach carpet, a sloping floor & a bachelor packrat living under the kitchen. The décor runs a little too much toward elk prints for my personal taste but I consider that a small marriage compromise). (Side tangent: Does the punctuation inside the ( ) marks or outside? I can never remember… where is my Holt Handbook?) I have a fantastic husband (ok, he’s a little moody, he obsesses about his weight & he mumbles, but he’s funny, smart & sexy). I have a sweet & clever kid (well, ok, he doesn’t eat veggies or fruit and he loves to do “dangerous tricks” and someday he will be 2 or 16 and I will pay the price for all the naughty things I’ve ever done in this life but that’s about karma and, really, that isn’t his fault). I have a job (yes, I’d like to cut back my hours & sometimes it bores the hell out of me and sometimes it is frustrating and I wish it paid more but it has great flexibility and I love the people I work with….). I have great friends (Lala, I wish you lived closer. K- I’ll call you this afternoon… swimming then drinks at my house, I promise we’ll use the BIG wine glasses… bring Baby K’s jammies so you can spend the night.) (Side tangent: Why does MS Word change “jammies” into “jimmies” every time I type it? What the hell is a jimmies? Also, please note how I strategically got past the “I know the punctuation should go inside the quotation marks but I hate that because it looks odd” dilemma by using italics…)

Regrets: I don’t have a lot of regrets. Well, let me rephrase that… I have a lot of things in my past that I COULD regret but I choose not too. Hell, I’m a very interesting person and I wouldn’t be if I didn’t have my, um, colorful past. There are a couple of things that haven’t come-to-pass that I think about sometimes. I always wanted to raise my children in a multi-lingual household. That isn’t happening. I also mourn the general lack of ethnic diversity in Montana (Really, all we’ve got are Native Americans, unless, of course, you count Hutterites and Canadians) and I dread raising a child who might look askance at someone’s skin simply due to lack of exposure to variety.

Remorse: I think remorse really only should happen when you do something big & bad…. Like when you maim or kill someone. I mean someone who doesn’t deserve it.

Goals: Don’t ever say I’m not an over-achiever. (Ok, truth, I’m a big planner but not so good on the follow-througher part.) I like to make my goals before Thanksgiving every year. It gives me something to assess when I hit the February doledrums. My goals for the next year aren’t big. I want to downhill ski more this winter. (Do you think 18 months is too young to learn to downhill?) I want to fly fish more in the coming year. I want to have all my holiday stuff done early in December so I can enjoy the season (don’t laugh… I actually manage this most years.) I want to get pregnant. I want to de-clutter & simplify my office. I want to take more pictures. I want to remodel our house (ok, that isn’t in the next year but I thought I’d throw that out there in case anyone has some brilliant ideas….).

So, what was the point of this post again? Damn, I can’t remember. Ok, add that to the goals: Remember to take ginko biloba memory aid. I just keep forgetting.