I’m not sure what’s driving me to write but, hey, let’s ride with this feeling. It comes too few and far between the other feelings I get.
It’s that time of year again: the end of the year. A time for us all to scramble and figure out what this year has meant to us; what this year has done to wrong us and what it’s done right. And I think I have mixed feelings on this matter. Mostly, I feel like this hasn’t been just one year. It’s felt like three smaller years smushed into one, leaving my heart heavy and my soul aged ahead. There’s been too much heartbreak and change and loss for this to have been a year made up of months. Sometimes time is wild like that, I guess.
So, where I think this is going, is towards talking about things I want to change. Everyone has their opinions on resolutions—They don’t work. They’re a hopeful gesture! People who make them are delusional—and I’m not one for being overly hopeful…and yet, I feel calm as I think about the things I want to change in the coming year. As a person, I feel like I’m all over the place. (They say that’s how Gemini’s are, so I’m gonna give credit where credit’s due on that one.) I’m someone who feels fractured into so many versions of me—so many that I can’t help but feel like I’m fake. And who wants to feel like that?
But, my god, that’s so hard to change.
So I’ll start small.
In this next year, I want to be happy. It’s the oldest, albeit cheesiest, resolution of them all. The most abstract goal to strive for. But I think that’s its charm. There are so many ways that you can work towards that goal, and its reward is a better overall life. How can someone not have that as their automatic resolution for each year? Heck, start off with that one and tack on others as they come to mind! If you do that, then you just look like a nicely organized person. Just saying.
With that being said, here’s my overly cheesy, abstract goal for myself in this upcoming year. And all the years thereafter.
Mini Goal #1: Write again.
It’s been excruciatingly long, and I feel a void inside me that feels like a shameful lie. How can you tell people that you’re a writer if you never write? You simply can’t.
Of course, there have been things stopping me from sitting down and going, but what’s stopping me from writing long-hand in a notebook? Or sketching out a poem before turning in for the night? The easy answer to these: nothing. The hard answer involves the loss, change, heartbreak etc. previously mentioned.
The simple result of working harder towards this? The calm feeling I have right now from releasing my thoughts and feelings and articulating the bubbling catastrophe that is on lock down in this skull of mine like a pressure cooker for days on end.
And this is a feeling I want more. A lot more.
Mini Goal #2: Exercise and do those healthy things.
Wow, Emily, this is looking a lot like how everyone’s list will by the end of the month, you could say. You’d be right (infuriating so). But this is something that makes me happy. It’s incredible how different you can feel about yourself after eating some veggies or going for a quick jog. I don’t need to explain that. You get it.
This is on the list because I forget some times that this is something that makes me happy, and I need to not listen to the nagging thoughts that force me to think that I can never be happy with my body. Or that I’m never going to be motivated enough for this. Those are terrible thoughts! Be happy with your body for what it its! you could say. You’d be right, but you know how it goes. It’s easier to listen to the whispering voice and all that.
Mini Goal #3: Learn. Stay Motivated. Try to focus on possibilities.
I like lists of odd numbers.
Here’s to us all finding peace in a new year. (You know, at the end of the month.)
