Flowin’
It’s the end of the decade – let the obligatory recaps of the past and promises for the future commence! Except for me…I’m not doing that.
I planned to do just that. I would make a list of each New Year’s Resolution from the past decade, I decided, and assess whether or not I accomplished each resolution, starting with last year. (Spoiler alert: I did not.)
Yes, I failed. I already knew that. I didn’t accomplish much of anything this year. I’m still living in a place I don’t like, my career is still stalled, and, in fact, this year I made the least amount of money I’ve made in over a decade. I tried, but I failed.
You know how people say failure is a good thing because you learn from your mistakes? Well, I don’t particularly think I learned anything. Unless you count learning that, next time, I shouldn’t even try since I’ll just fail again. Once again, my self-esteem took a beating. I didn’t learn, didn’t succeed, and didn’t progress.
So, why don’t I feel bad? Something weird is happening. Something vaguely recognizable from the distant past. I feel good. And hopeful. I feel the most hopeful that I’ve felt in years. Like there’s finally light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that (honestly) has spanned much longer than just this decade.
I feel…comfortable. Not comfortable with accepting that my life is not what I want it to be (I never will be), but comfortable that things are about to change for the better.
So I’m not going to go back and examine how, year after year, I failed. Or how I felt that the universe had failed me in some way. That would be unproductive and (hopefully) irrelevant in the long run. I’m also not going to make dramatic proclamations about the future, suitable only for the big, bright, shiny new decade ahead. I’d probably just fail at keeping those pledges anyway, let’s be honest. (My self-esteem is still in recovery mode.)
What I do want to do is hold onto this strange hint of warm fuzziness inside me. To keep that tiny speck of hope and promise that I can ever-so-slightly see beginning to flicker on the horizon. It’s been so long, dear friend.
It doesn’t make any sense. After a string of bad years, I shouldn’t feel good. But I do. And out of that paradox emerged my New Year’s Resolution for 2020: Just go with the flow. Warm, fuzzy feelings in bad years? Great. Inexplicable hope in the midst of failure? I’ll take it. Seemingly nonsensical optimism? Sure, why not.
Yet I can’t help but wonder what the universe has in store for me in the next decade. Am I right to feel hopeful? Or will it be another series of let-downs? As curious as I am, I’m not planning, I’m just flowin’ with it.
Now, I’m going to stop talking about it before I jinx it (and knock on wood for good measure).
