A New Theme

Last January, I gave myself one resolution for 2011.  Don't be a wreck.  That was it.  That was my theme for the year.  I was emerging from a rather lengthy period of confusion, coasting, and angst that had come along with two and a half years of post-college new experiences and my first long-term relationship.  Come January, I was looking into the future and realizing that all I wanted was to reach a point of emotional and physical health and balance.  And I wanted to be myself and to be happy without freaking out all the time.

I am pleased to announce that I have officially accomplished my one goal for 2011.  I have emerged from 2011 not a wreck!  Hurray!!!

And yet, in order to become not a wreck,  most things in my life became moderately to severely wrecked in 2011.  That's the most interesting thing about this year.  A lot happened, happy things, overwhelming things, and very shitty things, but when all those multi-colored thing-shaped puzzle pieces squeeze together, they spell VICTORY FOR JESSICA! 

First the good:
-I became a runner and lost 25 pounds.
-I experimented with online dating and learned how to stare at a stranger and gauge whether he is worth two and a half hours of small talk or not.
-I realized that I want to become a high school teacher, and I got that ball rolling.
-I received a rather unexpected job promotion and made a lot of money over the summer.
-I found some special friendships.
-I got a new boyfriend for awhile and had the happiest month of my life.
-I moved to a beautiful old house in NE Portland.
-I wore good clothes.
-I got honest with myself and wiped out my biggest insecurity/source of ongoing angst.

But there was also this:
-I was very, very lonely for the first half of the year.
-I was denied admittance to eight graduate level creative writing programs.
-I realized that neither creative writing nor romantic relationships were ever meant to be the purpose of my life, and I came to the unpleasant realization that my life had no direction and that I had no idea what my purpose was.
-I felt like a failure.
-I got really depressed.
-I realized that a lot of my life's problems have actually been caused by me and not by other people or sucky circumstances, by my insecurities and boundary problems and extreme emotions and my unhealthy reliance on others.
-I went to see a therapist.
-I got really anxious.
-I went on medication to help out the chemicals in my brain.

Yes.  Those things happened.  And yet, here I am emerging from 2011 as the Least Wreck-ish Version of Jessica That Has Ever Existed.  And I believe that the moral of the story is: I am my own problem.  I have been my own problem for a long time, and perhaps I needed to sink down into the depths of that realization in order to actually emerge out of it not a wreck.  And that is why 2011 was the best year of my life.

I would like to take a moment to celebrate 2011 and bid it farewell.

Moment.

Farewell, 2011!  I am very happy to watch you shift into 2012.  I am excited to see what this new year will bring me.

I don't really write new year's "resolutions" in list form.  I pretty much have ongoing resolutions festering in my brain at all times, and I don't need to put any of those on a throne every January.  But if last year's theme was Don't Be a Wreck, this year's theme is going to be: Joy and Freedom. 

I'll probably write another post later exploring what Joy and Freedom is actually supposed to mean, but it's nothing too deep.  I'd just like to give myself the freedom to experience joy, to let happiness seep into the present moment.  I am learning about these things.  It's good.

Happy New Year, world.  Happy New Year, friends.  Happy New Year, self.  Happy New Year, coffee shop that I am sitting at on my last day of winter break.  Happy happy.