Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is December 31, 2011. Which means that indeed tomorrow is a new year. And what better way to plunge into this new year than with Emerson’s wise words? Here, Emerson talks in terms of days. How days entail beginnings and ends, separations, chances for reinvention, improvement.

But can’t we just as easily, and fluently, speak of years? Shouldn’t we begin this new year well and serenely with too high a spirit to be encumbered by last year’s nonsense? I think so. I think we all, each and every one of us, owes it to ourselves to do just this. To begin again. Even if last year was a gem, involved scant existential blunders, absurdities and nonsense, isn’t there something downright majestic about starting fresh, and fiercely?

I think so. I know so.

Tomorrow is a new year. And I welcome this new year with a happy, if hazy mixture of humility and hope. Mark my words here on the eve of 2011′s first day: It will be a good one, this coming year.

Tomorrow is a new year. It is also my Big Girl’s birthday. She will be five. I have been a mother now for half a decade. And it has changed me profoundly, this tending to little lives, this privilege beyond all privileges. Stay tuned for an ode to my first girl.

Tomorrow is a new year. Are you ready to begin again? Because I am.

Happy New Year, all! Do you have any general or particular plans for 2012?

If you slow, if you stop, if you squint, you will see them: Life’s white lights. They are wrapped around growth, around green. They dangle and dip. They glitter and shine and blur together. They remind us of seasons, of sweetness, of soul.

His birthday. The man I love is thirty-six today. And the girls and I will descend upon him at his office and take him for lunch. The girls will nibble fries and probably sing holiday songs, and Mommy and Daddy might even indulge in a rebellious midday celebratory cocktail. If there is a quiet moment or two, I might hold his hand over the table and mouth them, those simple words, also true: Happy birthday, babe. I love you. The girls will attack Daddy with hugs and we will say good bye, parting ways for the afternoon hours. He will go back to work, see out the day. We will go home. And then, in the evening, we will take our little girls to a big party. A party at my childhood home. We will twirl with our little creatures around another big tree, around friends old and new and forever, around family. We will celebrate it all – the birthday, the holiday, the everyday.

Our anniversary. On Sunday, it will be seven years. Seven years of marriage. Seven wonderful and wild years. Years in which we’ve thrived and survived and welcomed a treasured (and tricky) trio of Rowley girls. We will do what we try to do each year on this night. We will hold hands and walk the short distance to the Museum, where this all began. We will climb the big beautiful steps out front and sit under the lit-up dinosaurs. This year, we will have our kids with us. We will tell them a little story. Of us. And then we will hold their little hands (and tote the tiniest) and walk them back down those stairs. And back home. Once they are tucked in, I imagine we will have a quiet toast. To really good years. The ones behind us. And all those that stretch ahead.

My break. It’s that time of year again. To stop, to see, to savor. To pause. It’s time again to spend time in pajamas, tickling tiny toes. It’s time to curl into the cozy moment that is right now, not then, not when. It is time to breathe a series of thank yous, to spend quality time looking at them. My little creatures. My man. My gifts. All of life’s white lights. Because they are there. On that big sweet-smelling tree. And they are here. Tangled in the crooked branches of a life I happen to love.

Happy birthday and anniversary, my love. Happy holidays, all. See you in 2012!

Today I will take Little Girl to her nine month well-visit at the pediatrician. Nine months. She’s been in this world as long as she was inside me. Hard to believe. Wonderful to realize. Because this is a yummy age. She is sturdy, but still small. She is starting to swim and scoot across the floor, pulling herself with determination like a little blond soldier. She has two teeth on the bottom; little white squares that make me smile. Her hair continues to sprout, and stick up, and this garners many smiles. From us. From others.

She does not yet have a slew of real words. But she says wonderful things like “Da da da blah blah blah” in her crib in the morning before I get her. But what amazes me, really amazes me, really blows me away is that she is starting to understand. Recently, I said to her, “Clap, clap, clap.” I did not clap myself, just said the words. And she looked at me, tilted her head, pinned me with those impossible blues and she did it.

She clapped. Three times. Clap. Clap. Clap.

And it wasn’t just a clap. Or three. It wasn’t a messy, first-time, baby clap. It was a perfect, precise, almost pretentious, little golf clap.

I can’t describe it. The pride. The amazement. The fascination.

She is a little person. A little person at the beginning of it all. Life. Understanding. So much.

And so. I will take her today. To our wonderful doc. And we will find out how big she is. And I will turn to the doctor and I will say it, “She understands me. She does the most magical little clap.” And maybe I will get her to do her little party trick right then and there in the office. Or maybe not. It doesn’t matter.

What matters is this. This feeling, familiar and wildly new somehow. This feeling of robust love and reverence. For a certain creature. For a certain role. For a certain memory, etched permanently already.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

So simple. So not.

Do you have vivid memories of moments like these? Do you remember when your little ones started to understand you?

Am I alone? I am trying to fight it, but I’m not sure why. What is it that I’m trying to fight? The urge to step back, shrink inward, to regain a core of privacy, to put the computer away (when I am not writing my book). The compelling instinct to give social media the cold shoulder.

Blasphemy, I know.

Or is it? I don’t know. I’ve been at this for almost three years. This blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, spending a good chunk of my daily time online thing. But before that what did I do? Is it weird that I don’t fully remember? It’s like trying to remember life before Email or the Cell Phone.

Strange. Impossible. What?

Here’s the thing. I don’t know whether I am experiencing a typical phase of social media burnout/introspection or whether this is something more significant. It could be that my body and mind just want a bit of R&R after going so strong for so long. OR. It could be something more meaningful than that.

I am writing about this because I get the sense that I am far from alone in feeling these things. I know many fellow authors and mothers and bloggers have expressed a similar sentiment about social media.

The interesting thing? Recently, I have been quite good about tending to my “real world” relationships. I have been good about seeing friends, and supporting them, and letting them support me. I have hosted and attended a slew of brilliant play dates and just threw a genuinely fun and festive holiday party for friends and family. I have been having a gorgeous time with my girls, indulging in quiet moments, legendary silliness (involving junk mail treasures and magic sugar packets), and in evening Christmas carol dance parties. I have been having wonderful conversations with my man.

I wonder sometimes if it is not truly possible to immerse ourselves well, and richly, in online and offline worlds at the very same time? But maybe this is a cop-out, an excuse. Maybe I am just changing, or tired, or something.

After publishing my post yesterday wherein I mentioned my recent growing unease with blogging, a friend and ILI loyal wrote me an email. She pointed something out that may or may not be true. She said that my blogging has gotten a lot more personal lately. She noted that since Little Girl was born, I have written almost exclusively about myself, or my girls, or my family. She mentioned that I used to ponder a broader spectrum of topics, and questions, many of which were not truly about me. She said she liked reading these older posts.

For some reason, this email made me wince. Maybe because it was true. Maybe because I have been very intentional about getting more personal here, about excavating important existential soil. Since welcoming my third child, my life has gotten more complicated and I have relished the opportunity to sift through the complications here, to consider what it means to be me these days. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is perhaps just why I blog. To generate thoughtful comments from those whom I respect. And this email was nothing, if thoughtful.

Maybe my reluctance in this world has to do with this, the fact that I have felt unnecessarily compelled of late to reveal bits and pieces of self and soul here. Maybe I should go back to pondering the serious and silly questions about life, but not necessarily my life? It is worth thinking about. Because I love this place. This world. And as much as I hem and haw and threaten, there will be no cold shoulders given. At least not yet.

Thoughts? Anyone else feeling anti-social when it comes to social media? What do you think this is all about? Do you agree that my blogging has gotten excessively personal? In general, do you prefer personal or impersonal blog posts, or some combination thereof?

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell

Middle Girl is afraid of shadows, particularly the one cast by the chandelier that hangs from her bedroom ceiling. She is also a bit afraid of Scout, our resident elf. We tell her that there’s nothing to be scared of, that we are here, that all is good, that she is safe. But is this the right message to send, even to a small creature? Isn’t life, and love, all about fear?

Fear.

It’s interesting because Big Girl never talked much about fear. She never had qualms about surrendering to the darkness of her room at night. Quintessentially scary scenes in movies have never fazed her. She’s just a different kid.

And so. I am sitting here. At yet another Starbucks in my city. Thinking about fear. About how, if we are really honest, we will admit that fear underpins so much of existence. That it informs so much of what we do, and what we do not do. I am realizing, and beginning to revere too, that I have many fears. They come with being a parent, sure. With that boundless fog of anxiety that settles once you bring a baby into the world. But my fears are broader in scope. They have not just to do with the job I am doing with my children, but they have to do with me. Me as a discrete being.

I have fears that I am not leading the life I should. I have fears that I am wasting time. I have fears that I am not contributing enough to that ever-elusive greater good. I have fears that I am superficial sometimes. I have fears that I am too reliant on certain people, and certain things. I have fears of writing a bad book, or saying the wrong thing. I have fears of writing a wonderful book, of saying the absolute right thing.

I have fears.

When I think about it, I am using fears quite broadly here. I think the word thought would suffice. I think a lot. Sometimes, I feel like I think too much, that the tangle of my thoughts unnecessarily complicates things. But then? Then I think: No, I’m not sure there is such a thing as thinking too much, or even fearing too much.

I think what matters is what we do with our thoughts and fears, how we arrange them in the recesses of our minds and our lives, how we honor them at times, and shove them aside at others, how we understand them, how we function in their midst. We can try to conquer our thoughts and our fears, and maybe we can find a modicum of success in these efforts, but I think what’s more important is that we notice them – those things we think about, those things that matter to us and deeply, those things that stir our souls.

A while back, I wrote a little post. The post was about Emerson’s quote, one of my favorites: Always do what you are afraid to do. And I still believe this. That we should march toward those things that rattle us, that we should live and love and learn bravely. But I do not think that wisdom begins only at the conquering of fear; I think wisdom comes in living within the context and contours of our fears, and even with loving them.

Recently, I have become more hesitant on this blog. I have felt uneasy about revealing too much here. I’m not sure why. I think I am longing for a certain kind of privacy I once enjoyed. I think I am also afraid. Of judgment, of silence, of regret. This insecurity? It’s not new. It is why I named my blog what I did almost three years ago. We can call it what we want – insecurity or fear or prudence. There are many words, many names, for the more complicated things in life.

But here I am. Writing. Writing about the grit, the gray, the glorious swirl of existence and identity. Here I am. Doing something which I fear. It feels good. It feels scary. It feels bold. It feels right. It feels like why I started this silly old space in the first place.

The next time Middle Girl tells me she’s scared, I will pull her into my arms and I will nod. I will look past the decades that divide us, into her three-year-old eyes and I will not quote Bertrand Russell as I do here. Instead I will say something far more simple, and maybe far more true. I will say, “I understand you’re scared. Everyone gets scared sometimes. But I am here, we are. And you will be okay.”

Because she will. And so will I.

(You, too.)

* Speaking of conquering fear, please check out the great article by my friend (and fabu wedding planner) Jes Gordon in yesterday’s New York Times. Congrats, Jes!*

Do you feel fears in your own life? Do you think it’s important that we acknowledge, and respect, our own fears instead of trying to eliminate them wholesale from our worlds? How do you handle it when your loved ones articulate their fears?