I honestly haven't been thinking about making any new year's resolutions this year. In fact, that hadn't even crossed my mind until I dug back through my archives looking for my post about last year's new year's day. I had stated that I wanted to forget all about 2010 and move forward with 2011 since that was sure to be a better year. I wanted to just be myself this last year - no tricks, no smoke and mirrors. And that didn't really work out for me the way that I thought it would. Oh, it worked all right, it just did it in a way that I hadn't anticipated. It knocked me on my butt cold and hard and fast. And it took a while to recuperate.
In January a really big, really bad thing happened that I fought with and cried over and wanted to die from. It was earth-shattering unto my soul and my heart and my head. I looked at the situation unfairly and I spent my time dragging my feet, trying not to move on. I talked a good talk but I didn't always walk a good walk. My head wanted to be in the right place, but my heart wasn't ready for that yet.
This went on for months, too. I wasn't myself, and I didn't want to be. I also didn't really know how to be myself either. I had based so much of who I was on the relationship that I had been in, that I really did just forget how to be me. I kept trudging forward though, making baby steps that deep down I didn't want to make, but I knew I had to. I was holding on too tight to something that just needed to be let go.
On the plus side, I dropped fifteen pounds like it was no body's business.
Then before I knew it, it was summer time. I spent my days learning the subtle art of watercolor and cooking meals for PC. I still hadn't fully recovered, but I was happier with where I was in life. Except that I kept hoping things would right themselves the way I wanted them to. Yeah, that never happened. But I kept hoping. I would cross my fingers and wish on stars and I prayed about it a lot. But I kept finding out things that were being hidden from me, lies that I had been told, and looking back now I don't honestly understand why it is that I held on so long hoping things would change. Things would never change the way I thought they would. Life didn't go where I wanted it to.
The end of June I finished my class up and celebrated with friend by going to a party where I met Somebody-Very-Important. We flirted and talked and hung out all of July and when I got back from my trip to Honduras he wanted to make our relationship official. So I went with it. I really liked him. He was the first guy that had got my attention since my big split with PC and I liked the way I felt when I was with him. I liked the way treated me and how he spoke to me. And the fact that he paid for me whenever we went out didn't hurt his cause either. I had been so used to driving everywhere and paying for everything and being the rock in an unsteady relationship that it took a little bit of time for me to be comfortable with the new flow of things - but they were flowing the way that I wanted them to instead of feeling like I was swimming upstream all the time.
PC was still floating around in my life until the biggest lie I'd ever been told came to the surface. I found out things that I had thought would never happen to me - no, it couldn't be. I didn't want it to be that way. He had done some things behind my back that he told me he wasn't doing to my face and then he tried to blame me for finding out - telling me I had been too nosy, that he was only trying to be my friend and I wouldn't let him, when in fact it had been the other way around. And once this had all come out, I couldn't just sit there and let it roll over me like I had done in the past. This time I had to do something about it. PC was interfering with my relationship with Somebody-Very-Important and I had still not completely let him go.
So that's what I did. I shut off all communication with him. I wasn't friends with him on facebook, I didn't instant message him, and I quit answering his text messages. It took me a few weeks to get the courage to go pick up the stuff I had left at his apartment, and when I did that I made sure I didn't have to see him when I came over. It was only after I completely cut him out of my life that I was able to really move forward.
I learned how strong I can really be and I figured out who really cares about me. I decided about things that I do like and things that I don't. I don't worry about stepping on toes or making anybody mad. I do what I want, when I want, with who I want. I am myself. I've learned that it's okay to not like all of the same things that the person you are dating likes. I've learned that you don't have to be serious with someone to have fun with them. I've learned that this is my life and I get to do whatever I want with it.
I have a better relationship with Jesus now that I'm not in a toxic, suffocating relationship with someone who doesn't want to be with me. I got to take a missions trip to a foreign country. I have tried new things and I have met new people. So even though I absolutely detested the way this year started, the ending to 2011 is much better than I would have ever thought possible.
This December I am a happy 21 year old with loads of new friends and my own personality and my only resolution for 2012 is to keep exploring myself. I'm not going to expect anything from this next year and I'm not going to set any precedents, I'm just going to let 2012 be 2012 and see where life takes me. A lot is going to change for me this next year - I will move back in with my parents and graduate school and then after that I will just have to see where Jesus takes me. But I know that whatever happens I will always have God and a plethora of people who love me just the way I am even if I don't like myself.
So Happy New Year to all of you, may 2012 be exactly the year you need.
Best wishes and hope in the new year Natalie! I'm with you, I have hardly any resolutions or "expectations" for this new year :)
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