2012 has been a helluva year for me.
- It has been simultaneously dull as rocks and life-alteringly thrilling.
- It was the first full year of my adult life throughout which I remained officially single.
- It was the year I got my first tattoo and chopped my hair into a pixie and dyed it blonde. (I am now officially back to being a brunette, btw).
- It was the year I got to spend with my nephew, and I taught him about all the best parts of life (like licking the frosting off your birthday cake while everyone else is singing & the importance of overreacting to video games).
- It was the year I got to know myself and became comfortable with who I am.
I'd mostly given up on the tradition of New Year's resolutions; even the most solid of intentions seems to slip through the cracks in my resolve by mid-January, and I've found the annual repetition of that failure both disappointing and frustrating. "I'm going to change" has become a familiar refrain over the last few years, and my lack of progress towards that change is due solely to my own lack of discipline.
However - I've recently come to the realization that the failure is not in not reaching my goals, but in having no goals to reach. So what if they change?
New Year's Eve is this beautiful in-between time, when it feels like anything is possible. Just like morning holds all the hope and promise of a new day, the few precious moments preceding and succeeding the stroke of midnight January 1 runneth over with almost tangible potential. It's why we make New Year's resolutions, why we feel compelled to keep them (for the first few days, at least) and why it feels like a fresh start, regardless of the fact that it's really just business as usual in the linear scheme of things. On one of the deepest, darkest, coldest nights of the year, New Year's Eve is the celebration of light and hope and the deep seated need we all have - the need to believe that we can change, to make ourselves better than we are.
My resolution this year is to be a better person. To try a little harder. To give more, expect less and always be there for the people I love. To be less angry and much more passionate. To achieve something of worth to myself, to hell with what anyone else thinks.And to cross a few more answers off of 42.
What are your 2013 resolutions?