fiery skull diaries

i started 2012 with clear, specific goals. i wrote out a few feasible things my husband and i would accomplish each month, with step-by-step details about how we would get them done. for the first three months of the year, i worked on creating a 101 things in 1,001 days list. i kicked off my 1,001 days on my birthday in mid-april, crossing off from the list “get a tattoo.”

but as the weeks after that ticked by and my life started falling apart (which you know a little about if you’ve been reading this blog for a while) and my future became uncertain, the 101 things i’d decided to do took a backseat to the daily turmoil i was dealing with. i didn’t forget about the list. i felt guilty abandoning it, but there was simply no place for it at the time. when the turmoil subsided, my priorities had shifted. i knew that if i was going to pick the list back up again, it would need a huge overhaul.

naturally, i avoided anything to do with it.

as i’ve thought about what i want 2013 to look like or what resolutions i might want to make, i’ve been intimidated with self-doubt and fear. i started last year off in a good direction (the “right” direction? i don’t know. but a good one, yes). i had good intentions and i was eager. i got up on january 1st, 2012, and drank a fresh juice out of our juicer before going to work.

it was mostly beet and it was the grossest juice i’ve ever had.

it also made me pee pink for two days.

when i woke up this morning, i was still unsure what to do about this new year. i was still asking myself, “should i make resolutions? should i redo my 101 things in 1,001 days list? should i just continue to dedicate myself to a little progress each and every day, as i’ve been doing lately, and forgo the grandiosity of making new year’s resolutions? if i do make resolutions, should they be big or small? few or many? vague or specific? where do i begin??”

i opened the “add new post” page here on the blog, knowing i wanted to say something about arrival of the new year. since my mind was still blank, i picked up my journal and began to write. i only wrote six short sentences before having an epiphany. (i guess this is why they tell us to keep journals.)

i started 2012 out with good goals, but not with purpose. i was out of touch with myself. i knew how to recognize what was a good thing to do simply because it was a good thing to do, but i didn’t know what i needed. i didn’t know what i wanted. my job was all wrong because i didn’t know what i wanted to do. my marriage was threatened because i didn’t know myself. i ate a lot of good food because i knew it was good food, but i didn’t understand why or how much my body needed; i was inconsistent in my eating habits, and i consumed too much sugar.

since leaving my job in september and entering the scary world of the two of us living only on my husband’s income, my life has been about getting in touch with myself; reaching down into my roots, growing deeper roots, understanding who i am and what i want… because all my life until now i’ve been doing things because they’re “good things to do.” i haven’t learned the difference between what’s good and what’s good for me.

so this year, 2013, is less about the things i cross off from any checklist, and more about continually creating short-term and long-term checklists/goals/resolutions throughout the year, the items of which are chosen and set as a fruit of knowing myself better, and therefore being able to identify with more purpose than ever before just what to spend my time and energy on.

it’s less of a resolution and more of a theme.

purpose.

happy 2013.