A Gentle Resolution

Jan 4

It’s a new year. When I was a teenager, my friends and I loved singing Death Cab for Cutie’s The New Year. Our excitement for the song came simply from the fact that it was the only New Year song we knew of. I can say for sure that I never took thought of the lyrics. I was young and life problems was the easiness of dumb boy and average school grades. Now, I’m melancholy as I listen to those lyrics —

So this is the new year
And I don't feel any different
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance
In the distance

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
Or self-assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

On New Year’s Eve I didn’t dress up, light fire crackers, and participated in conversations that bled into one. I clank wine glasses with sparkling cider, dress in my robe, and I was in bed by 11:49. Jordan and I laugh that we almost made it to midnight. I was tired and I expected I would enter the new year that same very way.

This year I feel very inundated by participating in setting a New Year’s resolution. Though I agree with Melissa Clark’s sentiment of resolving to eat all the delicious foods. That is forever my life goal. I had several failed attempts at resolutions. Who hasn’t. There was the fasting diet thingy that I did with the intention of having better energy and focus. Then there’s the vague “read more” goal, but which I did, but I beat myself up when it took me two years to read one book and when I quit a book. The book that took me from one year into the next (so not a full 2 years) was Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk. I savored that book. I didn’t fail. And that book I quit, I wasn’t ready for it yet. I just quit another book that I started just after Christmas. Fictions aren’t what I need at this moment. I’ll get back to The Vanishing Half and The Bell Jar. Well, maybe not The Bell Jar. I don’t think I can take more of Plath’s racist Chinese stereotyping.

Point being, my being overwhelmed by a resolution is based on not wanting to start something new. Jordan, on the other hand, is very much into the starting fresh spirit. When he asked what I was feeling for 2023, a response felt heavy. I started new in 2020 and I just want to keep working on the goals I made two years ago. I’ll continue to read more, but this time I’ll be okay when I quit a book because I’ll understand that book isn’t what I need at the time. I’ll continue to work on ways to achieve focus and optimal energy, whilst understanding I’m a mom to two littles. I’ll continue to say yes to things I love like picking up my sketchbook and pencil instead of my phone to zone out to a round of Two Dots. And that’s a goal I made in November of last year so a big “no thank you” to precisely timed goal making and achieving. All in all, I’m just going to take care of myself this year. Do better than what I did last year. Progress, not perfection.