New Beginnings

A new year used to feel like such endless promise, but I guess I am more jaded now.  I am old enough to understand how things can go to hell in a year.  Heck, in a lot less than a year.  I have 54 years of unmet promises and denied desires under my belt now (and around my belt, but I digress …). 

Still, every year, I start out longing to reconnect to that sense of promise, that clean sense of beginning. 

So, every year, I resolve to get out of debt, get out of relationships that do not work, lose weight, be neater, be more successful in my job.  As if finances, relationships, weight, cleanliness and work  would guarantee me happiness and the life I want. 

So, each year I start out so hopeful, and end up so defeated.  Because, it is not just the reality of starting another year with all of the previous years’ resolutions unmet – the weight of them both figuratively and literally --  it is the greater dream that is now denied, or at least deferred.  I HAD to get thinner to be happy.  I had to be cleaner to be happy.  I had to do [fill in blank with failed resolution] to be HAPPY.  So, I failed.  I failed at happy.  Again.  I do not deserve happy.  I will never be happy.  I will never, ever be happy.

I do this to myself year after year.  Set up self for defeat.  Check.  Make little effort or no effort towards unattainable, improbable goal.  Check.  Stress and fret over lack of progress.  Check.  Loathe.  Check.  Assess progress.  Check.  Become more defeated.  Check and double check.  Surrender to defeat.  Checkmate.

This year, I am taking a break from my failed resolutions.  I am not resolving to do anything that ultimately puts me down, makes me unhappy, causes me pain, or defeats me.  No “x pounds lost by x date” this year.  No “x done by x date” thinking.  Instead, I am going to start to take better care of myself.  To eat better food, so I feel better, so I enjoy eating more.  Even though I am fat, I do not enjoy eating.  I resolve to wear cozier jammies so that I sleep better.  I do not sleep well.   I resolve to allow myself time to be still.  I put incredible pressure on myself, and deny myself relaxation time until I am totally stressed.  I am a “white knuckle” relaxer.  I will tell myself everyday (multiple times a day, if necessary) that allowing myself these things is not failing at some other unstated goal.  That the only goal is to get in touch with my “happy”.  I will start that search with finding my “comfortable” and will work on that for a while. 

Comfortable is better than defeated.

I have found that I cannot tell other how to treat me kindly and well, because I just do not know how to do that when it comes to me.  I do not expect others to be kind to me, because I am so wrapped up in punishing and denying and hating myself.  I have a translation problem with myself.  My inner self speaks “love me” and “know me” and my daily self speaks “too busy” and “you are not worth it”.  

It has always been easier for me to state what I do NOT want.  Oftentimes, loudly.  But, that is mired in negativity.  Giving voice to all of those horrible things I do not want.  It makes those unwanted things more tangible.  Yet, I rarely give voice to what I do want.  It is not that I do not have hopes and dreams, but rather that I do not reveal them and rarely even whisper them to myself.  I am basically unable to let the sun shine on my hopes and desires, afraid to put even the slightest wish out there for scrutiny.  My scared inner self tells me, “If you do not state your desires, then you do not have to put up with them being not met.”  Which, of course, is true.  But the other truth, the one I now realize is the bigger truth – is that if you do not put your desires out there, they can never be fulfilled.  By anyone.

I want to be comforted and comfortable in 2013.

Wishing you a happy 2013 with good food, cozy jammies and the stress-free time to enjoy them.