2014

It is New Years Eve and as I sit here thinking about what kind of Asian food I want to eat sometime in the next 6 hours since I don't go out anymore because of a child and blossoming hermitdom, I am reminded that this is the time of year where I am given a fresh start on me. As of tomorrow, I should be able to rectify 30 years of trauma, taco bell, break ups, put downs, mistakes, poor judgment calls and summers without sun screen. On January 1st all of that shit can be thrown out the window and I can finally FINALLY be happy with me!!

Unfortunately it doesn't usually work that way. New Years and the accompanying resolutions are like the first bite of Fruit Striped Gum. Your taste buds explode in happiness only to be brought back down to the reality that what you are chewing only tastes good for 4.7 seconds before it turns to dryer lint in your mouth.. I imagine this is what heroin is like. I could be off, my knowledge of hard drugs is solely based off Requiem for a Dream and Trainspotting. Anyways, resolutions are like that. They are momentary blips of I feel awesome, I can do this!!! that fall away as the reality of life creeps back in.  I know there are some of you out there that make a point to change things in your life, and you stick to it. You have gumption and drive and can not understand why everyone else around you can't seem to get their shit together. Good for you, STFU, and go away now please.

For the rest of us, the feelings of unhappiness with ourselves linger long after we've dropped whatever thing we resolved to stop or start doing this new year. For the record I am not talking about clinical depression here. I have been clinically depressed off and on during my life and that is an entirely different beast than the general feeling of low self worth that I am referring to. I think temporary or long lasting feelings of poor self esteem/worth/image is probably just part of the human condition, but with the introduction of targeted advertising and social media it has become this giant invisible elephant on many shoulders. We walk around daily with this weight and pretend that it is not there because it isn't cool or interesting or funny to admit that you don't really like yourself and you don't know what to do about it.

 Its funny because I can honestly say that I am the happiest I have ever been in my life right now. But on the inside I still don't like the me that's there. My external life brings me great joy, and I am at a point in my life where I would like my internal landscape to match. And for the first time, I am realizing that no amount of yoga, or healthy eating, or affirmations, or sticking to a schedule, or uplifting blog posts/videos, or flossing daily, or writing weekly, or cleaning the baseboards, or figuring out how to fucking iron--why is that so hard-- is going to fix what is going on inside. They are temporary solutions to a deeper issue. I don't think I am alone in this. If we are truly at peace with who we are inside, the part of us that actually matters, our actions come from a different place than they do if we are striving for change to match someone else's ideal of what we 'should' be. Real internal changes come with feelings of excitement and eagerness. Your resolutions should make you feel like you are on the way to a party, not waiting in line at the DMV. If they don't, who are you doing it for?

So this New Years my resolution is to figure out how to actually change how I think. Some heavy, deep subconscious navigating. Like I need to go on a vision quest, and maybe find my spirit animal type shit. Because I want to let go of this thing Ive been dragging around with me for over half of my life. As overused as it may be, life is so short. It really is. We have this one tiny microcosm of time to truly experience everything we can, and the older I get the more I realize that everything really does mean everything. Inner peace is not reached through constantly trying to be happy, like a dog chasing its tail. Inner peace or equilibrium or balance or whatever the hell you want to call it simply means accepting whatever your immediate now is with humor and grace. At least that's how I see it. That sounds like it should be easy and maybe it is, but our brains make it way more complicated than it needs to be. I am not religious, but I think if anyone in history has ever come close to achieving this it had to be Buddha. That or he just had access to some really neat drugs.

Who knows if I will figure this out for myself. If I do, I'm sure it will come about in the way I least suspect. I hope your 2014s bring to you what you are searching for.

HNY

~Maria