... it's a no from me.

 

My New Year resolution is that I'm not making any New Year's resolutions. After 2020 done fucking up our lives, I know better than to think that our magical thinking has any influence over what life actually brings to us. Oh, Don't believe me? The president of the United States just called the Attorney General of a state to ask him to 'find him' eleven thousand votes, eleven US senators go against the will of the voters who put them in the senate to appease a wannabe tinfoil dictator and the vice president of the country applauds their effort. And while all this takes place (it's January 4th, mind you) the country reaches another milestone concerning COVID-19. And you think that your New Year's resolutions will have any effect? Allow me to laugh. 

Yes, I know that our lives are what we make of them (and that exerting some sort of control over some things is good for our mental health) but after all we've been through this year I have decided that I am going to focus more on things that require short-term focus and that impact the way I live my life on the daily. I know, not making New Year's resolutions is kind of an oxymoron for me, taking into account that I seem to be an animal of custom and that I have been accused of being slightly on the Type A side of things. After all, I blog almost every day and have journaled for many, many years. Talk about thinking that systems are more effective than goals as a contradiction.

It's not like I would not like to exercise more, eat less sweets, stay away from toxic relationships, change my sofa's upholstery, make a terrarium, learn to sew and so on and so forth. I would like to be more politically active and I'd like to take control of many aspects of my life. It's just that after the 180 (or 360!) turns that most of us had to do this year, all those little things seem to be, well, very little. Especially compared to the immensity of loses, setbacks and problems that this pandemic has brought to so many people.

So even though I will be forced to plan in advance and make some decisions beforehand for work (we cannot totally tell society to fuck off, alas) I think that I will focus more on making mini-resolutions this year, as opposed to making grandiose, all-sweeping assertions about a year that now, more than ever, is as unpredictable as anything. I am going to focus on the life I want to live at the moment, more than focusing on the life I want to live in a nebulous future that most probably will have to include a deadly virus and many more changes and adjustments.

Oh, I feel optimistic about 2021. It's not like I've given up hope or dreaming or enjoying life. I feel hopeful that our lives will be better and less stressful than the last four years and that we will reach a modicum of order in the country. But what I will take into account is the rhythm of my life in order to try to live it better. I will not try to make my life fit a series of expectations that will probably have to be recalibrated over and over in order to fit the crazy events of a year that most probably will still have its share of fuckery.  I don't want to have to go through that again because it's absolutely exhausting. One of the things that 2020 has taught me is that EVERYTHING needs to be flexible: my hobbies, my job, my relationships, my life. And I have decided hat approaching life in that way is a much more doable thing. 

So that's my New Year's Resolution: not having one. Yeah, I don't make sense to myself either. 

XOXO

P.S. I'd really like to visit Kevin's antique store, though...