I Hate February (Still)

I've been trying to avoid it for the last 11 months, but the inescapable reality is that February is right around the corner once again. 

Last year, I wrote about why I despise February.  Nothing has changed since then. 

A number of you apparently agree with me, because this post is one of the five or six (editor's note: with the hits from this re-post, it's now second) most popular post ever. 

So here's why I hate February.

Let's hope this month goes by fast, although, sadly, leap year forces us to endure it an extra day this time around.

I'm Getting Old, But That's Really Not So Bad

It dawned on me Friday night: I'm getting old, and I couldn't be happier about it.

When I was 18, the thought of a Friday night without plans would have fallen somewhere between the 6th and 7th layer of Hell.  In fact, the only thing worse than not having plans on a Friday night would have been a public pronouncement to everyone I know that I didn't have plans on a Friday night.
 
When I was 25, the idea of a Friday night at home didn't wreck my sense of self-worth in quite the same way, but it most definitely left me depressed, questioning whether I somehow took the wrong path in life that led me to this place of quiet, uneventful desperation.

Last weekend, at age 34, I didn't have plans on Friday night. Or Saturday. Or even Sunday.  And after a busy and exhausting week at work, I could not have possibly been happier about it.

What has become of me?

I got old.

The weekend isn't a time to party anymore, it's a time to rest and relax, or maybe catch up with friends. There's a fun guy inside of me capable of moderate bouts of unpredictable adventures, but he doesn't have to bust out every single weekend, or even every other.

Here's what I've learned: when we are young and insecure, we need weekend plans to validate our existence. To prove that we are interesting, we need to constantly do interesting things with interesting people.  Maybe we have more energy too, but we also have a need to prove to ourselves that our lives are going somewhere.

Not anymore.  I don't have anything left to prove to myself, or the world.  I've traveled all over, found the love of my life, and I wouldn't trade my close friends for anyone else's anywhere. 

At this stage, if I don't have plans on a weekend it doesn't mean I'm a failure. It just means I had a busy week and need to relax.

It's still nice to have weekend plans sometimes. Time with friends rejuvenates the spirit, and doing fun stuff helps us plow through when the obligations of life feel like a grind. But my life no longer feels empty if I spent a weekend here or there catching up on sleep and watching travel shows.

When I was young, I felt like I had to accept any invitation, no matter how unappealing, if it was the only way to avoid a weekend night home alone.  Maybe I'm old now, but I'm glad those days are over.

Growing old means my joints creak, my knees and back often ache and I can't get out of bed without grunting. It means I go the bathroom at the same times every day and that my day is offtrack if my morning routine gets sabotaged.

It means I'm only a pretty good basketball player now, and people no longer ask for my autograph at the conclusion of my pick-up games, as used to actually happen sometimes.

One day, growing old will mean that I wear ugly checkered pants entirely too high on my waist, and that I won't be able to hear when people snicker at me for doing so. It will mean my hair will recede, that I'll insist on talking about how things used to be, and that I'll think all the modern music sucks even more than I already do.

Of course. I'd love to be able to dominate a basketball court the same way I could 10 years ago. But otherwise, the tradeoff isn't all that bad.

Getting older means that I'm comfortable enough in my own skin to know what I like to do with my free time, and to also stay home and do nothing if I feel the need.  And just as importantly, it means that I can tell you that fact without fear that you'll think I'm a loser.

Because I'm not.  I'm just getting old.

The Vacation-Day Adventures of an Overworked Professional (a/k/a Andrew Smith's Day Off)

8:30: Wake up at eight thirty to wish my wife, Liz, a good day and kiss her goodbye. Look forward to rare day with no obligations, other than one specific request from Liz. More on that later...

8:32: Go back to bed, where I in equal parts revel in the fact I have nowhere to be, and dread that fact that my three-day weekend ends tomorrow.

9:05: Wake up, reheat cold coffee and thoroughly enjoy a breakfast of yogurt and poptarts.  Toss yogurt top to annoying cat pawing expectently at my leg. Proceed to surf internet while watching replay of my Alabama Crimson Tide's BCS Title Game victory that my LSU-fan wife would never allow in her presence. Still watching until...

10:45:  Holy crap! I have a lunch date and am running three shades beyond late. There goes my relaxing morning.

11:17: Showered, shaved and dressed, I get ready to walk out the door, but remember that I'm forgetting to do the one thing Liz specifically asked my to do today.  What the hell was it?

11:18: Walk out the door, thinking that I'll just have to remember it later.  Get halfway to the car and...

11:20: I WAS SUPPOSED TO START THE LAUNDRY! Better do that now.  Not sure when I'll be home.

11:24: Head out.  Run an errand, get lost in the maze of streets in downton Nashville.

12:10:  Manage to come near the vicinity of our restaurant only 10 minutes, late.  Friend calls to say he's running 15 minutes late, think about giving him a guilt trip for failing to honor the sanctity of our appointment but decide it's too much trouble.

1:15: Lunch complete with my similarly situated, single-for-the-day-white-collar-executive-guy friend with nothing to do today, we decide to use this occasion to find the most testoterone-laden, wife-unfriendly film currently being shown and enjoy every moment of this rare opportunity to see it.

1:36: The listed movie start time was 1:15, we just walked into the theater and previews are still playing.  Sounds about right.  Wait, here comes the movie...

1:42: Something just blew up. I'm not why or by whom, but it doesn't really matter.

1:45: Now a car is driving really fast.

2:02: Someone just got shot.  By someone else in a car that is driving really fast.

2:07: Now that car that did the shooting just got blown up!

2:12: Repeat of the prior sequence, but also a drug smuggling operation is involved.

2:58: Now a BOAT (which is going really fast) is on the verge of getting blown up! Or possibly shot!  This is GREAT!

3:16: All appropriate things being now blown up and all bullets fired, the protagonist achieves his desired end and hints of adventures to come.  Seven dollars well spent.

3:45: My offday is waning.  Must spend next hour doing something entertainingly unproductive.  

4:01: Stop by house to: (1) use bathroom, and (2) put laundry in dryer. Remember number one (literally!) but forget the laundry part. 

4:05: Arrive at local coffeeshop for coffee and ice cream.  Intend to write blog post and take care of some personal business, but end up surfing Internet instead.

4:07: Realize I've just realized life dream of entering Nashville's teeming mass of creative types who sit with their laptops in coffee shops on weekdays but don't actually accomplishing anything (including doing their laundry). One dream down, 98 more to go.

4:29: Finally get started, write this blog.

5:05: The blog is complete, and my off-day is over.  I guess I should go home, finish my laundry, and prepare for my painful return to life outside my little dream world for the day, a life filled with work deadlines, chores and bills to pay. 

5:08: I'm not happy about this development.  Not at all.  To cope, I might just have to blow up my laundry.     

A Beginner's Guide to Making Resolutions That Won't Get You Arrested. At Least on Felony Charges.

I have exactly one friend who hasn't broken any of his New Year's resolutions yet. He hasn't gotten around to making any yet, but that's beside the point. 

As I told you last week, I like the start of a new year.   It offers us a chance to examine our lives, assess our shortcomings, and then hope that they will magically disappear next year just because the calendar flips to a different page.

I'm as guilty of this kind of magical thinking as anyone. I write 7 to 10 goals for each year and am lucky if I accomplish half of them by the time year's done. I'm especially lucky to accomplish half of them if I happen to write down 7 or 9, because accomplishing half of a goal is much harder than doing a whole one.

Of course, it's easy to read 10 books if your goal is to read 20. But if your goal is to be elected President, try accomplishing half of that!  (No really, I'm serious. You should run for President. The Republicans need a decent candidate for their half of this race, and you can't be worse than Mitt Romney.  Even if you are a Democrat.  Actually, especially if you are a Democrat.)

But my central point is not to convince you to run for President.  It is to convince that it is really hard to win half of the American presidency.  If they wouldn't let Bush and Gore split it in 2000, then you are probably out of luck if that is one of your goals for this year. 

You should think of something else.

Which is exactly why I'm here. 

You come to this space for inspiration and direction for your life. (God help you.)  Or possibly you come to this space because you typed some words into a search engine that sounded a bit like the title of this post, and my friends at Google played a cruel trick on you. 

Either way, I'm here to help. 

To be good at goal-making, you should start by thinking about what you would like your life to look like at this time next year, and what goals you need to accomplish to make that happen. Next, you must determine how many of these results can only be achieved through grossly illegal means, and eliminate the two or three of these on which you are most likely to be apprehended. 

If any of your goals still remain at that point, you should write them down.  If you wrote down your initial unedited list, you should also be sure to shred it immediately. 

If any of your surviving goals were also on your list the previous two years and went unfulfilled, you should also get rid of these.  This serves the important purpose of improving your resolution-completition percentage, because -- let's be honest -- you aren't going to fulfill them this year either. 

Stop kidding yourself. 

Anyway, at this point you should have whittled your list of resolutions down to a manageable set of non-felonious desires at which you have not repeatedly failed.  That's a good start. 

If even that list still seems too intimidating, you can delete some of the more difficult goals and add some easily accomplishable things such as: "Read more of Andrew Smith's blog;" "Read more of Andrew Smith's sports columns;" or "send Andrew Smith money in the mail at regular intervals." These small goals are easy to maintain, and will improve your self-confidence as you work your way up to accomplishing your greatest dreams.

Which you most certainly will. 

Unless your name is Mitt Romney. 

Ending 2011 with a Bang

Thank you. 

The blog in its "best-of" format improbably set an all-time record of 551 hits last month, despite (or perhaps because of) my failure to actually post any new content. 

I'm still a long way from my long-term goal of turning this writing thing into a way to make a living.  But the blog has quadrupled its readership in the last year, so I'm thrilled that more and more of y'all are coming along for the ride. 

Please keep reading.  Tell your friends.  The blog does well when I post links to it on facebook, but I need some other traffic sources (like people coming to the site directly) for this crazy experiment to work long term. 

So keep coming back.  I promise to be more entertaining this year than last.  If I'm not, you can write me for a full refund.  Guaranteed.

Thanks again for supporting one attorney's crazy idea that life would be more fun spent making people laugh and inspiring them than arguing with them.

Happy New Year. 

Greater things are yet to come.  I can't wait.  And I'll see you soon.