Have you ever had those days when you have words sticking in your throat?
I have things I want to say, but no words to say them with.
Resolution Revolution
It’s that cheesy time of year again when millions of promises are made, only to be broken, discarded, or totally forgotten over the next few months.
So I’m not completely a New Year’s cynic; I actually think there’s a lot of value in mapping out the goals you want to make happen over the course of the upcoming year. I just get frustrated at the amount of resolutions, in my own life and in the lives of countless others, that don’t get resolved.
I wouldn’t call myself a finisher; I often start projects, full of passionate, creative, innovative ideas, and abandon them when I get a little bored or when my next great idea comes along and whisks me away into that special place in my mind where I am a prettier, smarter, more talented, better me. I’ve been this way my whole life and the various notebooks strewn about my room give testimony to this. I have stories, ideas, crafts, plans, blogposts, designs, and drawings half-finished in forgotten piles. They live on my bookshelves, in my closet and purses, under my bed, even in my car. You would think that with all of these projects in my head, I would be able to just finish one already.
And there’s my resolution summed up in one haphazard sentence: to make this year, 2012, a year of finishing things.
Remember that better me I mentioned earlier, the me who only lives in my head (and who maybe laughs at the messes I get myself into sometimes)? Well, that better me is about to meet real life.
I’m done leaving things unfinished. I’m going to act on my good intentions and actually exercise regularly. I’m going to listen to my gut and research (and eventually try out) a healthy vegan diet. I’m going to listen to the Holy Spirit inside of me and engage in an intimate, growing relationship with my Savior.
And it’s all starting right here, right now.
Cheers, 2012.
You are in love: you spend a significant part of every day together. You know his favorite songs and the way he likes to do his laundry and he knows that you have a little bit of an inferiority complex, but he loves you anyway. You try a new restaurant every Saturday morning because he loves breakfast, even though you only tolerate what you consider to be the worst meal of the day. You’ve watched every episode of 30 Rock while sitting on his couch, your cheek sometimes resting on his.
You are a couple and everyone knows it. You walk places hand-in-hand and subconsciously gloat over the fact that you have found the person that you believe to be your one; you consider yourself lucky, blessed, unique, gifted. Your face blossoms pink with the touch of love and you put on a little bit of weight because he doesn’t really care what you look like (he only sees your heart) and you stop wearing the clothes that he thinks are ugly and it’s ok because he looks at you more than you look at yourself.
But that’s not all you have to give up to make him happy. You give up your time and your personal bubble, letting him hug you, kiss you, hold you when he wants to because you know that he has an inferiority complex too. You give up your sense of adventure in surrender to his bizarre need for complacency.
You give up your dreams for the future and that’s when everything changes. You wake up one day feeling like you ate an apple core, like you drank from the faucet of a house in a developing country, like you made the worst kind of mistake anyone could ever make. And advice from friends, from family, from professors pours into your ears nearly unwanted, but you know you need to hear it and, as unpleasant as it is, it confirms the feeling in your gut that tells you that you are about to give up your whole life to the wrong person.
And you tell him. You tell him how terribly sorry you are and how much you regret hurting him, but that you don’t see a future with him at all anymore. You tell him he’s a great guy, the best guy, but that you’re not the best for him. In your head, you’re thinking that someday he will thank you for making the decision that he wasn’t experienced enough to know needed to be made. And you barely look him in the eyes, afraid to see the accusation and blatant feeling of betrayal you are sure will be there.
You have nothing else to say, but he is still sitting on the couch, waiting for something more.
“Can we still be friends?” you say, in complete disregard of that one time you promised each other it would never come to this.
He leaves. You see him in class and around campus and at graduation, but you are never friends, not really.
“And it seemed to her for the moment that this love was the greatest truth in her life, and that love could never be weighed out or measured, so much for this one and so much for that, but was an endless and eternal flow, that the more she loved, the more love she had to give.”
— Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon
Today, I:
…painted my nails.
…curled my hair.
…had family photos taken.
…ate a burrito.
…watched too much TV.
…walked my dog Raz.
…drank coffee and flirted with a barista.
…enjoyed an empty house.
…longed to go.
…rested.
…was content to be exactly where I am and who I am today.
“Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world. I want to be the one to walk in the sun. Oh, girls just want to have fun.”
— Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”
