The New Year.

I've long since stopped writing lists of resolutions (stop biting your nails, lose some weight, read more, do more, be more...) because I am trying to stop measuring myself up against ideals I can't achieve. I am slowly (very slowly) coming to terms with the fact that yes, I am in fact human, and yes, that means I'm fallible.

However much I may wish I were superwoman, the sad truth is that I can't reach every goal and tick off every point on my to do list whilst keeping a hold on my health and my sanity (and let's face it, I won't get so far with those to-do's if I've lost it - from experience). I am guilty of aiming to high and then dropping it all in despair and I realise that gets me nowhere.

There are so many things I want to achieve though and although I am being careful, to a point, with how gentle I am with myself I do know that I am by nature a procrastinator. So how do I go about achieving what is possible and healthy? How do I know what to aim for and how much to push myself? I don't think I can come to a conclusion on this (if anyone has any answers, I would be glad to hear them..!) and I suppose it is trial and error.

I used to a party on New Year's Eve every year as a child and I remember vividly this ritual we would go through every year: each of us would write out something we wanted to welcome into our lives in the coming year and something we wanted to say goodbye to. The welcomed wish was sent off in a balloon; what we wished to lose was burned in a bonfire. I am trying to simplify how I'm feeling to these two points but I can't - honestly, for me, tomorrow evening at midnight nothing special will happen. I won't change. My motivations, desires, hopes; none of that will change. A minute will pass. A new day will begin.

I will use this time though to look back and to look forward. What am I bringing with me and what will I leave behind? Where do I want to be; what do I want to be saying, this time next year?

This year I have gained back weight (a lot of it), a belief that I can get out of that kind of madness (I am by no means where I want to be with that, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel). I have lost inches and inches of hair. I have gained new friends, new loves, new interests, new obsessions. I am changed and I am the same. My plans have changed over and over and will change again.

I am looking forward into this new year with hope and with the belief that if sure of nothing else I can be sure of the fact that things will keep on changing. I will sit and think, keep going, and wait for Spring.

"Let everything happen to you.
Beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final."
-Rainer Maria Rilke-