It happens like this every year.  Things are going along at a pretty good clip.  The pace is manageable.  And then November hits and life becomes insane.  Before I blink, it’s Thanksgiving.  I’m suddenly scrambling to find gifts, send out cards, work, sleep, eat, and keep up with what feels like a year’s worth of stuff to do, crammed into just a few weeks time.  This year it seems even worse.

I seem to have been neglecting the vast majority of my friends.  I forget to return phone calls.  I have literally hundreds of unopened emails and every time I check one thing off of my to do list, it feels like three more things replace it.  How is it that I’ve already started receiving holiday cards, when I’ve barely even thought about sending them out?  I wanted to make most of my holiday gifts this year, and yet I haven’t started a single one.  All the best intentions and it feels like I’m barely keeping pace.

Sometimes I wish I could control my life like I can control my DVR.  Fast forward through the boring moments, rewind and repeat the good moments or the one I’ve missed, or just slow things down a little bit.  The slowing things down might help right now.

Wishful thinking, I know.  It will go by in a flash and then I’ll be in Florida for ten days.  I’ll be able to relax, see friends and family, eat good food, sleep as much as I want and maybe slow down my life just a little bit.  But for now, I take a deep breath and try to manage as many details as I can at a time.  Take it easy on myself when I’m not able to juggle everything at once and know that being perfect, dotting every last I and crossing every last T isn’t what it’s about.  I have to remind myself to savor every crazy day.  I do love New York City in December.  I love the twinkling lights, the cold weather, the holiday markets, the parties, the shopping, the gifts, and the manic energy in the air.  And I don’t actually mind the pace.  But, I’d enjoy it even more if I could just hit pause, rewind or slow a few more times before the year is out.

Each year on Yom Kippur I basically hide out in my apartment and sleep a lot, waiting for the sun to go down.  Last night on my way home from work, I ran into friends who gave me an extra ticket to services that are being held across the street from my apartment.  Getting up and going this morning at 9am sounded like a good idea.  But then I didn’t go.  I’ve also contemplated going to the closing service this evening, but suspect I will skip that too.  By the time the last hour comes, I am suffering with a raging headache and it’s about all I can do at sundown to get to the kitchen and crack open the stash of bagels and cream cheese.  Does this make me a bad Jew?  I don’t know.  I don’t often worry about that, but it does occasionally cross my mind.  I’m not particularly observant, except that I do go to temple on Rosh Hashanah and I do fast on Yom Kippur.  I like thinking of this as a day of contemplation, of recharging, of starting over for the New Year.  And I guess that’s okay with me.  And I really do need this day. 

Yesterday was a terrible day at work.  It was the day I discovered how stupid I’ve been.  At the beginning of July I thought that my boss and I had come to an understanding and things were going to be better in the long run.  So, of course, I let my guard down.  Flash forward two months and she’s hired a replacement for our coordinator, who changed jobs within the organization.  The new hire is fantastic.  She’s really smart.  We get along great and our boss sees her as the new shining star.  Which is all fine with me.  Except, now that she’s been hired and my boss isn’t afraid of being left without any staff, she thinks she can treat me like crap again.  Which she started to do on Thursday and escalated yesterday.

 The silver lining is that I had a meeting yesterday with another member of the senior staff about an upcoming event.  I happen to have a really good relationship with her and know that she’s no fan of my boss.  I essentially broke down in her office because I was so frustrated and angry and feeling foolish for having thought everything was going to be okay.  I told her everything and she was really helpful.  She essentially told me that it’s now time to go to HR, which I think is the right move.  She also said something to me that made me feel so much better, “You are not crazy.”  It was really good to hear it from someone who I respect.  And I knew it was the truth.  I also confirmed something that I’d only guessed at before:  my boss seems to be uniformly disliked among her senior staff colleagues.  It’s disheartening on one hand to know that this is the person for whom I work.  On the other hand, it made me feel better that a lot of other people I respect also think she’s mean and crazy.  Before the day was out I had spoken to yet another member of the senior staff who made me promise I would take a couple hours out this weekend to document all of the things my boss had done.  And to make sure that I continue to document it.

And then the final thing?  My new colleague and I commuted home together yesterday and we got to talking.  Turns out, she’s as smart as she seems.  She realized the first day that our boss doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing and that soon enough the bloom will be off the rose and she will be blamed for something.  She’s not sure she’s going to stay or leave, but at least I know that I have an additional ally in my day to day.  It doesn’t solve the problem, but it definitely makes things a little easier to deal with.

So, I’ll spend this day fasting and atoning for things I’ve done wrong: hurt I may have caused, times I have not been true to myself, gossip I have enjoyed hearing or perpetrating, jealousy I have let cloud my judgement and ill will I have bore against others.  And as I start over with a clean slate, I pray to be the best person I know how, to be true to myself and to have the strength to do the things I know are right and right for me.  To offer love and forgiveness to other people and to try my best to not be afraid.  And as for my boss, I pray that she finds peace and I try to remember that she has to live with herself for the rest of her life and that she is an angry, fearful person who has to live with herself and her unhappiness for the rest of her life.

The next time you hear from me, I will not be so hungry…

It was also a Tuesday, but it was a sunny and beautiful fall day in New York.  Today there’s rain.  At this time of morning I was still asleep.  I woke up to the Today Show as I always do during the week and the first thing I heard was someone calling in and describing a plane hitting The World Trade Center.  Certainly it was only a mistake…a wrong turn made, a small private plane gone off track.  As the second plane hit, the truth became clear.  How could anyone have known that the world would never be the same.

In some ways it seems like a million years ago.  My life feels really different than it did then.  But in other ways, it all comes back too easily.  The sadness that I never thought would pass, the underlying fear that followed everyone.  The realization and loss of innocence that we suffered as a city and as a nation.  In a lot of ways my life is better today.  But, because of that moment and the choices that followed, I often times feel helpless as a citizen.

 I hope that the upcoming election changes things for the better, but my cynicism isn’t letting me get too hopeful.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, I try not to live in fear.  I try to enjoy the little things and I try to not let the state of things get me too down.

So, I’ve been meaning to start writing again for ages and finally I’ve done it.  Unfortunately, in the process of upgrading to WordPress, I obliterated the archives from the last incarnation.  Ah well… good thing I didn’t say anything very interesting.  Also, keep in mind that this is a work in progress.  Some stuff is still wonkified.  Links not working, weirdness all around.  I’ll get to it.  In the meantime…

Life around these parts has been pretty uneventful of late.  Work is work.  It’s not been excruciating, nor has it been exhilarating.  Weekends this summer have either been spent away or as a hermit.  I haven’t managed a balance.  I’ve completely stopped exercising and when I’m home I feel like a narcoleptic.  There is no such thing as enough sleep.  Not sure what that’s about, but for now, I’m going with it.

Til next time…