Archived,  Life

This Is Not A List of Resolutions

December 28, 2013 /

(I originally wrote this in December, 2011. These remain true for me today)

Around this time of year, the blogosphere is filled with reflections, resolutions, and everything in between. Over the last couple of years, I’ve come to learn a lot about myself but that’s because I didn’t leave my reflection to the end of the year.

I get the sentiment – a new year is peeking at us and we’re overwhelmed with this sense of renewal. For some of us, the new year can’t come soon enough. I’ve had those years myself, when everything associated with that year seemed like a bad dream.

Maybe it’s because I’m an “over-analytical bag of compassion” (as I’ve been called) but I tend to do my reflecting on a daily basis, so when December rolls around, it’s nothing new. Sure, I look back at my year and reflect a little but for the most part, I’m just ready for another day.

Because that’s how my life is – day by day. At times, it’s hour by hour, because I can’t predict anything anymore.  The only thing I can do is reflect, try to figure out patterns and then find out what works for me.

Over the last few years, especially over the last two, I’ve nailed down a few truths about my life.

***

Blood does not family make. Blood makes you related to someone else. It’s the mutual love and respect you have for another human being that makes you family.

People in my past who treated me like shit and broke me gave me a chance to rebuild from the pieces.  I may have jagged edges but the pieces are still me – just stronger, a little crooked but a whole lot wiser.

I will have bad days where I slip, whether it’s emotionally or literally as I hide out on my couch. The world outside will keep moving but I’m in control of the direction of my world.

My gut never steers me wrong. I just need to listen to it.

I think about death, way too often. Sometimes, it’s in irrational fear. Other times, it’s to reflect and remind myself that no matter how bad my day feels, I was alive today.  Tomorrow isn’t promised.

I’m a hot mess. That’s never going to change.

When my best friend tells me that a situation is sucking the life out of me, I should probably take note. For her to tell me that means that it’s been gradually pulling me down for a while.

When I get super drunk, I cry. A lot. This is a fact of my life. Sometimes, I throw up. I’m working on the throwing up part. The crying will probably never go away.

I’m an emotional wreck of a human being. You don’t want to know the things that make me cry on a daily basis.

Those who I call my best friends, the ones who are family by my definition, won’t leave me hanging – no matter how I insecure I get. I can’t let my past pain color the good in my life today.

Life is hard. Words are hard.

I can’t ever stop writing.

My life is where I want it to be. I can stop sabotaging it now.

I will never fully fit in to my surroundings, but I didn’t come this far in my life by fitting in. I came by owning the fact that I’m an outsider and making shit happen for myself.

I could never be any kind of inspirational writer/coach/speaker/fill-in-the-blank. I don’t know how to actively inspire others. I just know how to live and share. Anything else, to me, feels fabricated. [This is not a commentary on anyone else. This is something that I came to learn about myself after joining a couple of group sessions, trying to writing ‘inspiration blogs’ etc.]

No matter how old I get, I will never be too old for the silly things that make me giggle.

***

These are my truths based on my life and experiences at 2 years old. In a year, I might add a couple of things, or nothing significant could happen to change it.

All I know is that I’ll be doing my reflecting quietly, without any kind of life lists, because that’s what works for me.

***

How about you? Are you the reflect and make resolutions type? 

Do you have a life list?

Was 2013 a “Shit, I am so over it. Bring on 2014” kind of year?

12 Comments

  • Imtheheppest

    December 23, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    Usually I make a list of resolutions and reflect back on the year…and then not do a damn thing on my list haha. But! This year. I say screw 2011, I don’t want to reflect, since it was SUCH a bad year. I just want to get it over with and pray with all my might that 2012 doesn’t suck worse. I already know I’ll have 2 funerals to go to in 2012, and I’m not looking forward to that, but I’ve got such a great group of online and real life friends that’ll help me through it this year. I’m hoping my 3rd person, my 22 year old friend, fights his cancer, and doesn’t die…I don’t want 3 funerals. I do have a life list. I started it this year with my free time being unemployed for the greater majority of this year. It all is going to start once I move to California next year.

  • Squish Avery

    December 28, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    Sometimes I make ‘Resolutions’… this year I am not.  I just want to improve what I already have.  2011 was, quite possibly, the best year of my life, and I want to see how much better it can get if I just get out of my own way.  

    I have what I’m calling Project 2012, but it’s not a resolution.  It is about being a better professional, about finally allowing myself that I AM a professional, and that that’s okay.  But I don’t count it as a resolution…  It’s not a goal or something to work at; it’s something I need to accept already exists and stop fighting.  Maybe it’s just semantics, but I’ll work on my stubborn qualities later, maybe for Project 2013…

  • Elizabeth

    December 29, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    I actually love making resolutions, but that’s more because I love making lists and checking things off.

    As for 2011 vs. 2012…2011 was fantastic. Everything I wanted and more. But I think 2012 is going to take the cake.

  • Scott Meek

    December 28, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    I think about death way too often, as well. I’m way too aware of my mortality. My fiction reflects that. But what can we do? In a lot of ways it helps us be happy and appreciate what we have, no? I see flowers and sunsets and rainbows and all kinds of other beautiful shit that others just gloss over, and I think that’s a direct result of my understanding that I could be gone at any time, and I’m not fucking ready.

  • Frank Galpin

    December 30, 2013 at 6:21 pm

    Nice post. I have to make a career change in 2014, and that’s going to be difficult. Besides the difficulty, it scares the begeebers out of me. I don’t have a clue what I want to do, I feel like I’m a teen again.