New Year, New You

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

Fir ald lang syn, ma jo,
fir ald lang syn...
we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
fir ald lang syn..."

"Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self-destruct."
- Sam Stevens

In no particular order:

• keep better track of my income and expenses, including balancing my checkbook regularly and saving my pennies
• write every day (“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” - T.S. Eliot)
• completely clean and organize my room by May (including all papers and crafts) [This is actually a huge undertaking, but I plan to chip away at it a little each day until it's done, dammit]
• finish (properly) 1 big writing project
• eat and take my meds/vitamins every day (I really need to work on eating)
• have a real-life adventure (not quite sure what this one means, but I wrote it down, so I must mean it)
• start Free Hugging again
• take better care of my car (and stop living out of it)
• get a full-time job
• do one thing each day for my own enjoyment, just for me
• fill a jar of happy thoughts
• exercise daily
• blog regularly
• write lots of book reviews
• be patient with my uncle and avoid homicide in his area
• keep track of the books I read (and reread)
• put daily effort into my appearance (i.e., put myself together in the morning)
• wear sunscreen
• get back to journaling
• spend time with Kenzie, teaching her how to be a kid
• devote a little more attention to the Kenzie blog
• start writing letters to the people I write letters to again
• try not to be so lonely all the time
• LIVE

So these are mostly things that normal people do anyway, and I don't really think of them as "New Year's Resolutions" so much as I think of them as things I've been needing to do and might as well use the new year as a good place to start myself in a new routine. Just saying. Because Resolutions are just promises we all make to ourselves after Christmas and forget before Valentine's day. I intend to hold myself accountable to...myself. Because I deserve these things. I deserve to write and play with my niece and do things that make me happy and to not be as lonely as I've been in the last 3 months. Don't I? I think I do, and tonight, my opinion matters.
Champagne and Big Bang Theory DVDs at Belinda's house with her boyfriend, Dana, and Courtney, then a slumber party with Court. That was my exciting New Year's Eve. But it's so much better than last New Year's Eve, sitting on the couch with my brother and a drink I didn't even finish. Courtney and I spent almost 2 hours sitting at my kitchen table talking about literature and books and poetry and things we loved. It's becoming like that, my kitchen table. I'll write more on that later, I think. She remembered to write to her husband before bed like she does every night, and then I remembered my own private tradition.
I pulled up youtube and played my favorite version of "Auld Lang Syne" and wrote in my journal for the first time in 14 months. My last entry was the 6 pages I spent writing out my first speech to tell my parents I was leaving LMU the first time. Of course, I didn't get more than 3 sentences into that speech, but it's in there, all the words I meant to say. I only gave myself time to scribble a few brief sentences, but I realized that I didn't do it last year and I felt awful. I don't feel a whole lot...better?...after having written those few, brief awkward lines, but I did it and I'll be doing more soon.

“Think back and replay your year; if it doesn’t bring you tears of either joy or sadness, consider it wasted."
~Ally McBeal

I'll try to remember to keep y'all updated on the status of my "resolutions" as time passes, and hopefully I'll have a nice little daily routine going by Valentine's Day.

Until then, ma jo's.....
"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."
~Jonathan Safran Foer
But not anymore.
~Willow