Whelp, I can try again in 10 days

We are 9 days away from all those fabulous New Year's Eve bashes, and 10 days away from 2014. Which means that it is about time for me to start thinking of my New Year's Resolution. Usually, it goes something like this:

This year, I am going to lose 10, no 25! pounds by exercising every single day and eating nothing but the absolute healthiest foods. I'm also going to take up meditation, to center my mind, which I will do every morning and every evening. I am going to volunteer my time and talents to an organization I care about once a week. And I'm going to write a book. And keep my house clean. And meticulously organized. And save money. And see friends more. And pick up an instrument. And. And. And.

I joke about people who drop their New Year's resolutions in March. Hell, I don't even make it to noon on January 1st with the extraordinary goals I set for myself. You'd think I would learn. But nope, I'm on the path to making the same mistake again this year. When will I learn that I'm not superwoman? Maybe that should be my resolution for 2014. This year, I vow to be a little lazy and to not put too much pressure on myself to be so perfectly flawless in every conceivable way.

As tempting as that is, my warped brain won't allow me to settle on it. I went another route. I took to Google, and did a bit of research as to what "normal" people plan for their year. Here's what I found:

• Only 45% of Americans actually make a New Year's resolution.
• Only 8% of people who do make one actually achieve their goal.
• But nearly half of the successes are achieved by people in their 20's.
• The most common resolution is to lose weight. (Shocker!)

I am choosing to focus on that third point. Statistically, I have the best chance of making a resolution and following through on it, if it is actually in the realm of possibility. There is a good chance that I may not fall into the 25% that drop their goals in the first two weeks. So, I did a little more research to find out what the most common resolutions are for my age group. I was pleased to find out that I could actually check quite a few off. I have found love. I am more than satisfied in my career and financially stable. I quit smoking years ago. Where do I shift my priorities now?

After a long 45 second debate in my head, I quickly realized that I cannot narrow my goals for the new year down to one idea. But I can contain it to three.

1. Alright, I'm not that original. In 2014, I want to get in shape. I want to drop the weight I put on with these bleepity bleep pills, and I want to tone up so that I don't threaten to stab the mirror when I try on shorts come June.
2. I want to spend the year focusing on my writing. I need to flesh this out a little bit more. Maybe commit to narrowing the focus of my blog and actually contributing to it once a week. Or maybe I want to seriously invest some time on that novel I've been working on. (And by working on, I mean mentioning about once every 2 months. Yeah, progress.)
3. I need one goal that isn't all about me and my dreams. But I need to realize that I might not be able to take on the world. So my third New Year's Resolution is to help Boyfriend achieve his goals in whatever way I can. Whether that means playing an active role in his ambitions or being a cheerleader as he does the brunt work, I can't say yet. But after all the encouragement he has given me these past 2 years to build me up to what I am today, damn, does he deserve it.

I have 10 more days to draft schedules and implement strategies and Google patterns of successful people before this yellow light turns green on 2014. Until then, I have some solid time to do all the bad things I promise not to do in 2014. How many trips to Kopp's do you think I can fit in?

Happy Chinese New Year!

I have a belly full of egg rolls, a glass of Riesling by my side, and a couple fortune cookie inserts on my refrigerator. Oh, and 4 tabs teaching me about my Chinese zodiac opened on my laptop. This is how to celebrate the Chinese New Year - culturally-insensitive American cheap-ass style.

2013 - The Year of the Snake, the Black Snake.  The snake who will hopefully have a little mercy on this enthusiastic, yet misguided, dragon.

Normally, I just live the Chinese New Year vicariously through my older brother who gets to experience it firsthand. Yeah, my awesome older brother lives in China. No biggie. This year, I wanted to celebrate it myself. Maybe this isn't exactly celebrating in the traditional sense, but I am acknowledging the fresh start and the chance to make the Year of the Black Snake my own.

(And I think it just sounds better than 2013 too. "I'm going to kick ass in the Year of the Black Snake" vs "I'm going to kick 2013's ass". Yes, I will take the snake symbolism, please.)

Let's recap. Early in the day, December 31, 2012, I posted a Facebook status gushing about how 2013 will be my best year yet. So hopeful, I was! And then something or nothing happened. I don't know. Later that night, I was a diving head first into the dark hole I had spent the past 5 months clawing, bleeding and crying, my way up. Less than two weeks into 2013, I would be checking myself into a locked psychiatric unit, avoiding eye contact with the imaginary faces of disappointment on the real people who pulled me up when I forgot to keep clawing.

I repeated this cycle once more before the end of January. Crawl up. Reach for hope. Slipping. Oh, shit. Hospital. Fuck.

It's scary how I can go from hopeful to hospital in a matter of days. It's scary that it happened twice in one month and scary that I am not confident it won't happen again in February. But I have learned something between my first New Year's celebration I cried through and the Chinese one tonight: going to the hospital is not as scary as not going to the hospital. Had I lacked the balls to pack my bags and spend a week at Aurora, Boyfriend would probably be packing up the rest of my belongings to donate to charity, or whatever it is the boyfriend does with the girlfriend's stuff when she swallows 348.5 pills.

I don't regret what happened during the first month of the year. It was something that needed to happen and was probably a long time coming. But I am ready to start fresh. This beginning, February 10, lets me do just that only this time with one hell of a solid plan, not undefined delusions of grandeur.

I have resources in the community that I can turn to.
I have self-help books that I have faith in.
I am enrolled in a class that will teach me more about myself and others like me.
I have a job lined up in the field.
I have lists upon lists of actions I can take to avoid breakdowns.
I have hope that comes from inside myself.

I could go on. But I don't want to. I want to finish my wine, maybe get one more celebratory glass, and write in my trusty journal. (Yes, I do write things that the whole world isn't allowed to see.) But first, Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!! To all of those who fucked up January, here's your guilt-free opportunity to start over. Or eat egg rolls.