Epiphany is always one of my favorite days of the year.
We always celebrate our Wise Men finally making their way to the manger scene with an epiphany cake and blessing the house. All of life feels shiny and new. It’s most wonderful.
The past few weeks of turning 41, entering a new decade-all of it has felt quite blissful. The past two decades of my life have been marked by such amazing highs and such lowest of lows-I’m excited that the past year was such an even keel in my life, and I’m hoping for that to continue in this new decade.
This past year has forced me to make some peace with a few things-the fact that no matter how outgoing I manage to make myself become, I am still an introvert at heart, and I still need down time to process the world around me; the fact that being “in my 40s” does indeed feel different than my 30s, in ways both welcome and not especially; and that, while I wholly admit that I have a problem with caffeine, I am also never really going to do anything about it.
On the other hand, I have learned that I can prioritize laying in bed all day when I want to, that any bad mood can be helped by a snack and a nap, and that I truly am just a complicated house plant that needs more water than I ever think I need.
As usual, my weekend was filled with movies and books (all rereads because that comfort is what my heart is yearning for at the moment). I introduced the girls to Forrest Gump just in time for them to see Tom Hanks receive his Cecil B. DeMille award (I told them that to truly appreciate Tom Hanks, we need to watch Bosom Buddies). But for now, I am on the precipice of introducing them to my 90s dramas-first up, My So-Called Life, and then Freaks and Geeks and Dawson's Creek (they love The Mighty Ducks so I kind of can't wait to see their reaction to Mr. Pacey Witter).
In the meantime, though, all the movies. Betsy saw The Rise of Skywalker of course with her father, and Felicity saw Jumanji 2 with her stopmom. Therefore, we saw Little Women and Cats (at Betsy's insistence).
Little Women
I spent my New Year's Eve rereading Little Women, as the clearly super cool party girl that I am. This movie captured the book in ways that I simply did not think was possible. By beginning the story at the end, Greta Gerwig finally solves the never ending problem of Jo marrying anyone at all, and especially the problem of that person not being Laurie. Amy has a storyline of an adult woman making somewhat sensible choices, colored by her childhood of being the put upon youngest sister. Concentrating Meg's storyline on her vanity gives her more to do than just mother hen. And my dear Beth is Beth.
"Women have minds and souls as well as just hearts, and they've got ambition and talent as well as just beauty. And I'm sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for. I'm so sick of it! But-I'm so lonely!"
All of that. I didn't know how much I needed Jo to say all of that.
Cats
Cats. What can I say? It's not as terrible as all that, if you go in knowing that it is a musical about cats. It's weird because that's a weird thing. The music, though, is mostly lovely-I especially like the new Taylor Swift/Andrew Lloyd Webber penned "Beautiful Ghosts." I love James Corden, even if that is a dorky thing to admit, and I think he's funny here. There were several young children at the show the girls and I went to and let me be firm, this is not a movie for little kids. It is a confusing plot for a grownup. They will be bored. (My biggest pet peeve in the movie theater is whiny children.)
So, Christmastide has come and gone and into the routine we go. I'm so jazzed for 2020. It just may be the best year yet.
"And so maybe my home isn't what I had known
What I thought it would be
But I feel so alive with these phantoms of night
And I know that this life isn't safe but it's wild and it's free"
-Beautiful Ghosts
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