25 for 25
My not resolutions for the newish year.
I love fresh starts. Monday is my favorite day of the week. I love the possibility that a brand new week brings. I usually start thinking of my New Year’s Resolutions in November. I start each week, month, and year with the enthusiasm of a panda playing in the snow (or the enthusiasm of any of us in the DMV whenever any sort of panda is mentioned) . But this year, I didn’t. It’s not that I didn’t think of how I want my life to change or improve, but I didn’t make any lists or plans. I didn’t resolve to eat more veggies and fewer Reese’s seasonal holiday blobs (currently nibbling a “tree” that looks nothing like an actual tree). I didn’t build a vision board or exercise routine or writing calendar and decide that TODAY is the day it all starts anew. Usually I at least resolve to watch more tv, but the 40+ episodes of Brooklyn 99 Bean, Husband, and I watched in a five day span makes me think I’ve probably got that under control for now. I’m not even doing Dry January-one of the things I’m most proud of each year-after doing it for the last 5.
None of this is due to some sort of “I am enough” mindset shift and newfound confidence and self-acceptance. I’m in my mid-forties, and if I haven’t reached those nirvanas yet, I’m not sure I ever will. But after all that 2024 wrought, I’m just not here for self-transformation and improvement. I’m here for very calmly, very quietly existing, surviving, keeping on keeping on.
I do still have hopes though. Framing this year into hopes seems more attainable and less rigid than the list of resolutions I annually make. Hope is softer than resolve. Both have their place, but as hardened as I am right now, I need to seek the soft and gentle.
Travel to Europe this summer. This is a hard hope to trust in because of all the other times I’ve placed hope in travel, all the longing I’ve nurtured for so many years, all of the almosts that never turned into definites. I took the first step and bought plane tickets, but I also bought trip insurance.
Accept my emotions or lack of emotions. In kindergarten, sometimes we watch this YouTube video called “Be the Pond.” It’s about being a place for your emotions to live without becoming them. I hope to be a pond for my emotions when I have them and not worry too much when I don’t have them.
Related, I’d like to stop worrying so much when my emotions aren’t happy ones. I spent most of 2024 fluctuating between intense rage and deep sadness that was really more akin to myriad grief. For a while I felt like there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t find joy or energy in anything. Joy was not available to me, and of course I blamed myself and my dumb brain chemistry. But once I started acknowledging that only two emotions were accessible to me, I felt much more comfortable in my emotions and much more willing to work towards feeling better. I finally found a good therapist (after meeting with one who looked at me during our second appointment and said “I just don’t know what to do with you. It’s like you have this huge wall up that I can’t get through.” Yes, ma’am, I do, and nobody can. That’s what my insurance is paying you to fix.) I now have somewhat regular appointments with my regular doctor who connected me with a sleep doctor who figured out part of why I’ve had nightmares since I was 11. That, in turn, led to the dreaded CPAP, and while I’m still tired most of the time and still have a lot of nightmares, my Apple Watch tells me I’m actually sleeping much better.
I hope to convince my family to have inside shoes and outside shoes. I’ve been working on this for years, and Bean is on board. Husband is still holding out. My point that Mr. Rogers had inside shoes has yet to convince him, but I won’t give up.
Spend less time in my bed. Going through a kitchen renovation meant that I lost access to my office for several months. People who live in my house routinely leave trash on the couch, ottoman, or living room floor, so I spent a lot of time hanging out in my bed because I didn’t want to spend time on trash couch. Now that things are mostly put back together, I’d like to utilize the more thoughtful spaces in my house.
Spend more time outside.
outside is where the sunsets are Focus less on earning my watch’s approval. I want to move my body in ways that release endorphins, but I don’t want to get so caught up in closing my rings that I find myself wandering the neighborhood at 11 pm just so I don’t lose a streak. If I need to spend a snow day or three lying around on my couch, I’ll try to give myself the grace to do that every now and then.
I hope “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” will stop playing on a continuous loop in my brain. It’s been over three years at this point. Can we just let it go? (see what I did there?)
Learn how to cook meat again. I spent six years as a vegetarian, but I quit that back in 2018. Still, I never quite got back into cooking meat again. The smell and slime of uncooked meat grosses me out, but I also know I need to get more protein. I don’t care for tofu or tempeh. I cooked chicken last weekend to throw on my sad desk salads and because I get so skeeved out by any sort of pink, said chicken is the texture of a belt. I’m pretty sure there’s a happy middle ground between salmonella and belt, and this year I plan on finding it.
Go to Disney. I discovered in 2023 that I don’t actually hate Disney and all it stands for. What I thought would be a trip to check off the parenting completion list turned out to ignite a presumably long term relationship with a complex corporation that seems to be run by both Santa Claus and Mr. Burns. I went back in 2024, and had what I called my “Me Day,” a day spent all by myself going to all four Disney World parks in one day. It was one of the best days of my life. I’m hoping for a day at Disneyland Paris in June.
July 13, 2024. Why all the poses, Disney Photo Pass people? Why all the humidity, central Florida? Learn how to make cocktails. I inherited my friends’ bar when they moved overseas, so I’ve got a lot of spirits I’ve never worked with or even heard of and no place to store them (other than my belly). I’ve also become someone who gets more pleasure out of one carefully crafted interesting cocktail than an entire bottle of my beloved Honey Moon viognier from Trader Joe’s.
Get more tattoos.
Get more piercings.
Rekindle my relationship with cooking and baking. We just spent several months going through an unplanned and unexpected kitchen renovation. Aside from obsessively cleaning it, I’m finding that I want to spend time cooking food that makes me feel good. It only took four months of Door Dash and freezer meals to bring me to that point. I’m hopeful it will last.
I've never been so excited to make Christmas breakfast. Or spaghetti with sauce from a jar. Or bread. Keep doing things--occasionally--that I’m afraid of doing. In November I went to a spa where I had to get completely nek-ked in front of strangers. It was terrifying and amazing, and I cannot wait to go back, soak in the rooftop pool, eat breaded chicken with rice, read my kindle in multiple saunas, and have every bit of dead skin scrubbed off my body. Over winter break I went to Sephora and paid $75 for someone to teach me how to do my makeup. I’ve used the techniques I learned most workdays, and while I still think I look like a four year old playing with Mommy’s makeup, I’ve received the occasional compliment on how good it looks. Today I spent a few minutes doing an AI (I think) powered tarot reading. There’s still enough evangelical left in me that I found it a little scary, but mostly I thought it was just dumb. I’m finding that the more I do things I’m afraid of, the less scary other things become.
Be more mindful of what I put into my body without obsessing over what I put into my body. Most times I’ll pick the sad desk salad for lunch, but sometimes I’ll pick the ice cream. Both are fine.
Actually remember to eat. Being a teacher means I often work through lunch. I need to put out toys and papers for math or tidy something up or respond to parent messages. I’m not supposed to work through lunch, but it happens more often than not. At least once a week I forget to eat lunch, which then leads to Husband asking me later why I’m being so mean to everyone.
I hope to stop worrying about why my tank isn’t as full as others’. I often look around and see my friends doing all these things--coaching kids’ sports, side hustling, organizing events, managing their budgets, and keeping their houses in a state of not squalor--and I feel deficient because I go to work and come home. That’s it. Then I do it again the next day. And that’s okay.
Related, in as much as is possible, I hope that 2025 will be a year where I discern how I want to spend my time.
And who I want to spend that time with.
And where I want my money to go.
And actually make the effort to put my time into those people and activities.
Discern what work I want to do/what work I’m called to do. I don’t mean for a job; I mean the work we all do beyond our jobs. I know my tank has the capacity of a shampoo lid these days, but I also know that my faith does not permit me to do nothing. Sometimes I think, well, I teach kindergarten at a Title 1 school, so I’m doing enough. But seeing all that’s been done to harm others and to harm the country in less time than it’s taken me to recover from a fairly mild bout of covid makes me think about what else I can--and should--be doing.
Listen to music that’s not just Taylor Swift. That woman has a lyric for pretty much every situation I’ve experienced, but I bet others do too, and I’d love to know who they are.
Finally, I want to spend 2025 being calm and gentle, and maybe even tiptoeing back towards finding something that resembles joy, compassion, and empathy in myself.
I spent most of 2024 trying to find joy. Turns out she was at Disney all along.
This is such a thoughtful, caring list. I am excited for you. Also, I am super duper excited about #1 and need to get more details from you when you have time to text or talk.