This year, I'm going to do it! I'm going to do all those things I planned to do last year, you know, until I sat on my ass for hours and hours watching Breaking Bad in its entirety.
It's in the air. It can't just be me, I know it. Why else would I suddenly have so many yoga and gym membership deals to write at Groupon? Why else would my Gmail inbox be packed with emails that say things like, "Resolve to Reinvent (Your Closet, Your Lifestyle)"; "New year, new skin!" and "The Exercise You Should Do Every Day in 2013"?
Like I wrote last January, I really do think there's validity in taking this time, post-holidays, right at the start of the year, to think seriously about goals for the coming year. Last year, I was thinking not only about what I wanted to achieve—more, better writing; a healthier lifestyle (shocking, and so original!)—but also about revisiting old habits and remembering not only things I liked, in general, but what I liked about me.
I have to say that it took pretty much the entirety of 2012 to figure out the latter part of those goals. And, while I didn't write as much—or maybe better put, didn't achieve as much with my writing—as I'd hoped, I actually did something far more important. I got back to being me. That may sound completely cheesy and ridiculous, but it's true. Now, sometimes "me" is a confusing concept. Sometimes I'm not the biggest fan of myself. Sometimes I don't know who the hell I am at all, quite frankly. But as long as I can honestly say to myself, or the cat, or whoever: I'm doing the best I can, and I'm staying true to myself while doing so, well, I think I'm doing okay.
I beat myself up a lot over the last year thinking about this blog in particular, feeling disheartened with it, feeling disheartened with myself over the lack of posts. I had reached a point where I was feeling rather silly about the whole thing, thinking, What am I writing any of this for, anyway? What's the point?
Finally, the other day, I figured out the answer.
I'm writing it for me. That's the point! That was the point all along. Writing and posting on this blog, no matter how silly or how embarrassingly in-depth I discuss a song, or a mouse, or whatever, it's me, writing and putting myself out there. And while I mean it when I say it's for me, I'd also be lying if I said it didn't make my damn day any time someone tells me he or she read a post and enjoyed it, or discovered a new song because of it, or whatever.
I guess what I'm getting at is this. While we're all caught up in a time of New Year's resolutions and goals, while I spend an entire weekend running around my apartment cleaning like a madwoman and doing yoga and trying to read everything at once, that it's also a good time to remember the beauty of just being present. Of not feeling silly because I wrote something personal, published it on the Interwebs, and no one said anything about it. Of not worrying about what bills need to be paid. The beautiful feeling when I stop thinking about all the things I'm not doing, or should have done the day before, and instead think: Today, I drank a smoothie. I did two loads of laundry. I wrote this. Today I felt happy.
That is something. That is enough.
My brother Jay got me this crazy, awesome book for Christmas called Be Here Now. It's about the transformation of Dr. Richard Alpert into Baba Ram Dass, through a spiritual journey that involves yoga, meditation, and probably a fair amount of LSD. So let me end all this with a passage from this trippy book that I never knew existed until I received it as a perfect surprise on Christmas day.
You don't have to have
that urge that desire
that unfulfilled
THING
Just let it be
Just
be
be
BE
Be More
MORE
MORE
What's holding you back? Your thoughts, huh?
You've got to give them up
Just ego planning
What are you doing?
Planning for the future?
WELL
It's all right now
But later? ...................... FORGET IT BABY
That's later
Now is
NOW
Are you going to
BE HERE
or not?
IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT!
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