When is a New Year's Resolution not a New Year's Resolution? Well, I guess when it's as rambling and meandering as this is sure to be. When it's created on the 3rd of January. And when it's more about the past than the future.
I was walking back to my car from the shops earlier on this evening, a frozen pizza and bottle of red wine in my plastic bag, and I started thinking. I've never really been one for resolutions - I can never keep them, or even think of something monumental enough to change in the new year. I suppose I just don't see why, if something needs to be changed, if some behaviour is annoying enough to warrant modification, or removal, there needs to be a new year as motivation for that to change.
That's not really what I was thinking about mostly though. I was thinking about the past year of my life, what I've done, where I've been, where I'm going now. I'm very uncomfortable with talking up my own efforts, rating my own achievements. I'm almost painfully humble at times (shit, to me it sounds pretentious to even claim to be humble!) But walking back to my car tonight, I felt proud.
I felt proud that I could walk, with a shitty frozen pizza, and cheap bottle of wine, knowing that I'd be sharing them with nobody...and I could smile. A few months ago, that wouldn't have been possible. My thoughts would have been consumed with the thought of who I wasn't eating with, as I wondered whether my phone was going to ring, if there'd be a text message the next time I looked. Maybe I'd missed one, maybe some communication had slipped through, escaping my notice, and my heart could race again. Irony's a funny thing at times - there was an sms waiting when I got back to the car. It wasn't from from her though, this message was from someone who makes me smile these days. She doesn't have that power any more.
I felt proud that memories of the last time I broke down, barely able to move, or function, were nothing more than that any more - memories. And that instead of those memories raising feelings of regret and loss, they are now like signposts on the road I've travelled. Reminders of where I've been, pointers to moments in time that I never want to forget.
Proud that in the midst of the rut I found myself in, I managed to leave the boring, pointless job I'd fallen into, and fall into something so much better. Something with prospects for my future. Working on an IT Help Desk may not seem like too much, but the satisfaction I get from taking a problem, talking to a stressed user, and at the end of 10 minutes or so saying goodbye to a happy user, who feels nothing but gratitude - well, it's a special feeling. It's the little things...
I'm proud that as I enter 2002, I've got no idea what life has in store for me - and I just don't care. New Years Day, 2001, I thought I had a pretty good idea of where my life was headed. I thought the picture in my mind probably wasn't too far off the mark. Well, it didn't take too long for that picture to be shattered. For months, I was consumed with thoughts of how I could get my life back to something like it was before. And the answer didn't ever come. With every day that passed without me coming any closer to the place I longed to be, I died a little more. If I tried something new, and it failed to move me towards where I wanted to be - that was a failure. In my mind, I encountered a lot of failure in the year gone.
So as the new year came and went, I made no resolutions. There were no grand plans for change. More than anything else, I made a decision....maybe it's a resolution after all.
This year, I will allow myself to live, and experience the freedom of a clean slate.
Ack! How could I have forgotten to include this place in that list? This was the year I was introduced to e2, and I'm so glad I was. The talent of some of the writers here blows me away, and I've read some of the most incredible words, and learnt so much in the few months I've known it exists. To all of you, thankyou for making this place what it is.