New Year, Same Me

There are 365 days in a year. 8,760 hours that we spend turning and waiting on a globe. We wait for the next year to fix what was broken by the previous year. We hope for better days in the next one to come and we pray that we will not feel the same as we did. If anyone knows anything about the desire to change on that first day of 365 to come, it is me.

I have years that I consider to be my best and more that were my worst, but overall, I always beg for a fresher one to come. I think of what I will be next time. I make lists and change my diet on paper. Calendars and journals litter my desk and motivation hums beneath my skin. I will be made anew. I will not even recognize myself by the end of this new year.

I always think that the more I change, the more time I spend on

becoming someone else, the better life will become. I have attempted this now for 23 years, but to no avail. Pain follows through despite the changing calendars and the earth will not stop spinning just because I failed. It continues on.

The hardest part is not even the failure of another year of no change. It is the people around you that do manage it. They shed skin right in front of you and leave you behind. If I have learned anything from the aspiration of a new year, it is that people will keep moving even if you do not. They will go around you, over you or even under you to continue on. They will not stop for you. They will not hold your hand while you wait for a cycle of this planet to begin. If you stay behind, you are left behind.

I believe in the change of people. In the way people can become more than they were and kinder than they ever had been. I believe in understanding and wisdom being found through age and time. More than anything, I believe in the lessons of life. Even the cruelest of them all. Perhaps, that is why I feel almost nothing when the new year takes someone from me. I understand, I mourn who they used to be, and I wish their new year well.

I wish everyone’s new year the best. I hope to them, it brings opportunity and love and virtue. I wish them everything that I do not have and all the changes that I have never found for myself. Life is made for new things and wiser minds.

Out of everything, I have learned that sometimes, the best thing you can wish for from a new year, is nothing at all. Sometimes, we need nothing to change. We need serenity and calm. A lack of pressure of things to become better and find joy in what already is.

I have chased the best and picturesque. The amazing adventures and experiences unmatched. I have run after those that I would never reach and jumped for heights just out of reach. All of this to only leave me bruised and empty. I have ended this year with purples and yellows on my heart, another wrinkle or two and wear on my couch that was not there before.

Days of 2021 were spent in bed from morning light to moonlight dusk, because the idea of moving was unbearable. I will leave behind days of an overflowing kitchen sink, mold in pots and cups that have left rings on wood. Hours of empty thoughts and evenings spent at home instead of running around a city. Mountains left unclimbed by me and watching planes fly across the sky instead of being in them.

With everything in mind that I have not done, I realize one thing about the new year to come. I remember those days of nothingness and realize that they were just as important as the days of everything. Some days are meant to be dark, dreary and useless. Planes are meant to have empty seats of those that never made it and boardwalks with fewer people today than yesterday. Who saves more water than someone that cannot get themselves to shower this month?

New years are not always meant for a better version of yourself. I am not obligated to be anyone more than who I already am. I am meant to be someone I am proud of. Sometimes, the most pride comes from just making it through another year at all. My greatest accomplishment can be waking up January 1^st. I can make the newest aspirations little things in life. My new heights can be as high as I can reach.

So, this year, I grant myself these things for the new year. I allow myself to be who I am today, who I was yesterday and if I wish to be mediocre tomorrow, I will be. If I wish to spend 365 days simply being here, then that is what I will do. I will make happiness in things that are small and if I do not make it to the other side of the world, I am where I need to be. I can be as unhappy, unsatisfied and unwilling to change as I wish to be.

If I wish it though, to completely change and break free of any habits that I no longer believe serve me, I may break those. I may change or stay the same. If I am happy today with who I am, but not happy with the girl of tomorrow, I allow myself to mourn her and move on. I can free myself of patterns I find unfulfilling, but I may return to them in relapse and forgive myself. This new year, I grant myself the greatest change of all. The change of not yearning for what I could be, but appreciating what I already am.