Posted by Meagan Fisher on December 31st, 2009
Yes, I am being awesome and joining the throngs of internet people who have published a look back at the past year, and a look forward at the next year.
Looking back
Professionally, 2009 was pretty awesome. I got to work with some of my favorite designers, I had my first speaking gig, I worked on some really exciting projects. Personally it had its high points too: we adopted our awesome cat Misty, went to London and Paris and Cancun, moved into a new apartment we love, saw close friends get married, and spent time with people we adore.
Unfortunately 2009 will probably always be overshadowed by the stress and grief that came with this year. Financially, the past year has been more difficult than others, for various reasons. Several animals in our families died. Someone close to my family committed suicide. Someone very close to me struggled with a powerful addiction. Last month was probably the worst of our lives, as we lost Jason’s mom to cancer. There were times when it felt like the cloud hanging over our heads would never lift, and it was hard to see the good in things.
Thankfully Jason and I have each other, our amazing friends, and our incredibly supportive families. They’re the only thing that’s gotten us through this very trying year.
Looking forward
I’m feeling so optimistic about 2010. Exciting things are happening here at Owltastic. I’m going to SXSW for the first time in a few months. My family member who was fighting dependency is getting help and making great progress (I’m so proud of you!). We’ve got great friends, and I’m encouraged that those friendships will only blossom in the next year. Jason, Misty and I are all healthy and usually happy. (Well maybe not Misty, she always looks pissed.)
I know a lot of people think resolutions are lame, but I don’t care. I love them. I make them all the time, especially at New Year’s. The problem is, I usually can’t even remember what they were by the time the following year rolls around. So this year, I’m writing them down, and publishing them here. If I succeed at any of these things in the next year, I will be happier.
This list is a total mess, and when I’m not frantically getting ready for a party I will have to sit down and organize it better. In the meantime, here my resolutions are, in all their glory:
- Stay connected with friends
- Lose weight (of course!)
- Get on a regular sleep schedule
- Respond to all flagged emails daily
- Communicate with clients more frequently
- Laugh more often, be less easily offended, don’t take things personally, don’t get so defensive when you’re wrong
- Check in with my family more frequently
- Go somewhere new every few months
- Finally get health insurance
- Write in Owltastic more
- Write at least one significant, useful, thoughtful web design tutorial / article a month
- Attend more web conferences
- Send more thank you notes
- Take more photographs
- Start knitting again
- Start illustrating again
- Read more, watch less TV
- Learn to cook and bake, at least a couple of things
- Keep a plant alive
- Listen, don’t interrupt or be distracted
- Go outside at least every now and then
- Don’t expect a gold star for everything you do
- At the end of each day, have a clean space for the following day’s work
- Try to look pretty every now and then, act like a girlfriend and less like a gross roomate
- Don’t put things off quite so badly
- Reduce my debt
- Pay bills on time
- Be better at video games
- Spend less time looking at Tumblr
Posted by owltastic on December 9th, 2009
I was a somewhat troubled teenager who rarely listened to my parents, and as a result I had a lot of sad, sleepless nights in high school. Despite my constant troublemaking, my parents were kind enough to let me have a dog. She was a very good friend during the angst filled days of my youth.
Her favorite snack was popcorn. If I left a bag of freshly microwaved popcorn on my bed during a movie bathroom break, I’d come back to find it stuck on her head.
From the first night that we brought her home she slept in my bed, and years later when I visited from college she still slept in my bed. This was difficult, since it was a twin size and we both weighed 100+ pounds, but we made it work.
When she was a puppy she fought with her reflection in the mirror, and I thought this was so funny I’d nearly pee myself laughing every time. As she got older she pretty much just wanted to take naps and eat snacks, which made us a perfect match.
Tonight she died of cancer we didn’t know she had. It had spread to all her major organs, and into her bones. My parents and brother held her and told her they loved her while she died. I wish I could’ve been there.
This is the second recent death in my small circle of people I’m close to, and though the first loss was much more significant, this just adds to the growing sense that life is so painfully short. I feel much older now that my puppy, who it seems I was just playing with yesterday, is gone. She’ll be very missed.
Natasha, left, with her brother Jack. This was taken last month, the last time I saw her.
Posted by Meagan Fisher on September 11th, 2009
Writing a September 11th post feels like a bad idea, because I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to claim a piece of the tragedy. Everyone talks about where they were, and we all shake our heads and say “it was so terrible.” It was terrible, but I’m sure we don’t know the half of it. Our perception of 9/11 is always veiled by what CNN didn’t show, or what the reporter on the scene decided to say. The tragedy really belongs to the people who watched it unfold, to the families of the victims, and not me.
I guess I want to write this down because every year I forget little pieces of that day. Some moments of it are still very sharp, but others have been lost to the last eight years. I want to record what’s left, so if someone asks in twenty years what it was like for me, I’ll know.
Being a sophomore in September in Florida is sweaty and boring, so I’m sure I was feeling very sorry for myself. I was sitting on our high school track, ignoring my gym teacher’s command to stretch my legs, when I overheard a boy say that New York City had been bombed. I remember thinking “he’s lying. Does he mean an atomic bomb? And who would want to bomb us, we don’t have any enemies anymore, right? Is my uncle (who lives in the financial district, I think) okay? What about my Grandma in Irvington? I guess that depends on the size of the bomb. Whatever, that fucking kid is probably just lying. He says he heard it from the ag(riculture) teacher. The ag teacher is a stupid hick. That’s such a fucked up thing to joke about. I’m moving to New York as soon as I graduate high school, and there’s no way it’s been bombed.”
The gym teacher told us to stop talking and jog a mile. I stood up, and brushed the concrete off of my palms. I think I asked, “will they make an announcement? If something really did happen?” This is where details are lost. I know another gym teacher came running over, and their walkie talkies were buzzing with voices. I felt vaguely sick, and started to wonder if something could be going on.
I remember walking to my next class, and hearing it was just a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center buildings. I thought about visiting the Empire State Building when I was younger, and how my grandpa said a plane had hit it once, but it didn’t fall. I felt reassured; it was just an accident.
The next memory is sitting at a desk, watching the first building fall. Ms. Kaney, my English teacher, told us to take out a piece of paper and write down what we were thinking. She said this would change our lives forever, and that we’d want to remember it when we were older. She was right. I wonder if my parents still have that piece of paper somewhere.
I was thinking about eating folded slices of pepperoni pizza at the feet of the World Trade Center, grease running down my chin as I stared up at their 100+ floors. I remembered there being a mall underneath the World Trade Center where I’d gone shopping with my Grandpa, and I wondered if it was still there. They said the Pentagon had been hit too. Were other planes were coming? Where would they be going?
I borrowed my Spanish teacher’s cell phone, and called my Mom. She was crying, but she’d talked to Uncle Lance, and he was okay. I think I asked, “are we at war now?” “I don’t know, honey. But you come straight home after school.”
And I’m sure I did, though all other memories of that day are lost for me now.
