You know the crazies are coming, don’t you?

I mean, they’re coming for me.  I’m assuming that they’re coming for every other person (or at least every other mother) in the world, too.

It’s that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It’s one month of slightly controlled chaos, enormous amounts of pressure and lots of extra calories.

I don’t mean to sound like a Scrooge, but I’ve NEVER been big on Christmas.  I take that back.  I was never really big on Christmas once I had to be the grown up (even before I had kids).  I don’t like deadlines, I stress about whether or not I bought something for all the people on ‘the list,’ should I have joined that cookie exchange and did I send cards out to everybody that I got a card from?

Ugh.

So, because Thanksgiving is not until next week, I’m sticking with the whole “Let’s make a better Heather” theme.  Smoking habit?  Kicked. (Don’t get me wrong…I still want to smoke.  A lot.  But I won’t).  Exercise?  Check – five times a week at the gym.  Weight?  Working on it with the exercise and some bland tasting, low calorie foods.  Except for the bag of Heath bars I bought that were on sale after Halloween.  But they’re very small  I’m doing all the crap my doctor wants me to do.  I just need a check up at the dentist, AND I need to get my hair done.

So, tomorrow I’m going to get my hair cut and colored.  Let’s see…I’m going to look back at some old posts…The last time I got my hair cut and colored would be August 13th.  More than three months.  Which explains the roots that are over an inch long.  And the greys.

Oh, the greys.

So, tomorrow will be it for a while.  The last thing I do for me until after Christmas.  Then I’ll be officially diving in.  Present buying, cookie making, wrapping, cards, decorating, attending concerts, making treat bags for school…the list will go on forever.  I’m gonna slap a smile on my face and enjoy it, damn it!  Really, I am.

I just hope I don’t come out on the other side of Christmas as a smoking, lazy, 50 pound overweight mom with a crushed sense of self and a crushed sense of humor.

But hey, then at least I won’t have a hard time picking out some resolutions for 2010.

In the past few months, I’ve re-connected with some people from high school on Facebook.  It’s been awesome.  I’ve come to a couple of realizations, though.  First off, everything is a little fuzzy in my memory from the time I was fifteen up until about the time I was nineteen.  I mean, I know the big stuff that happened.  Who I dated, learning to drive, etc.  But I forget a lot of the details.  The day-in, day-out stuff.  Actual pieces of conversation?  Forget it.  My memories from that time are more like still photos instead of video.

Some of my friends have amazing memories and remember lots of details.  Not me.  Not at all.  And it’s not like I have bad stuff to block out from that time in my life.  Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t mind high school all that much.  I sort of gave up on it in my Senior year, but I didn’t really hate it.  There were a few parts that I REALLY enjoyed.  Especially the theater/musical/stage crew stuff.  And those are the people I’ve been reconnecting with.

Here’s the other thing I realized.  I have no regrets.  I’ve always lived this way.  I’ve looked for the silver lining in things.  If there’s something I want to do, I either do it or plan on doing it.  Here’s how I came to this conclusion:

I was meeting with an old friend and his family and an old teacher. (not that they’re OLD, but I’ve known them for a long time…you know what I mean!).  I hope they don’t mind me talking about them   Anyway, my friend said that if he could, he’d love to go back to being a chef.  And my teacher said that if he were to choose another career, he’d either be a chef or a set designer.  Now, we didn’t discuss this in depth, and I can’t speak for whether or not they are planning on doing these things later in their lives.  But there was nothing that I wish I would have done.  I always wanted to try to sell real estate.  In high school, when other girls were reading ‘Seventeen,’  I was grabbing the Harmon Homes magazine at the grocery store and looking at all the homes for sale.  So, I finally did it.  It took me some time, and I had to wait until the right moment in life, but I tried it.  I’m glad I did it.  I’m also glad I don’t sell real estate anymore.  I’m super glad I got in and learned the business.  And I’m super glad I got out of it.  I learned a lot of things that I apply to other areas in my life right now.

This does not mean that there aren’t things that I want to do.  If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know that I’d like to make a living online.  So, I’m working on that.  Sometimes I work on that a lot, and sometimes just a little.  But I’m trying it.

So, what’s the point?

The point is, I don’t think that anybody should be eighty years old and think “I wish I woulda…”  Try stuff.  Take chances.  Do the right thing, treat people well.  Treat yourself well.

I have one thing that I’m really good at.  I’m good at convincing people to do things.  To take a risk.  To have no regrets.  My friend Bill whined about wanting to become a comedian.  I pestered and annoyed him so much that he finally just did it.  Tony always wanted to own a restaurant.  Over the past few years, I basically told him to get off his ass and do it because I was sick of hearing about it.

I now envision all of you getting yourself jazzed about just going out and doing SOMETHING.  Right!?!?!   Right?!?!?!?

Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.