Hoping Machine Refueled for Another Year
On new year's resolutions for 2025
This winter has been mild so far in terms of weather, and so my soul is not as heavy as it could be, as it has been before, with the lack of sunlight and the unrelenting cold. I'm grateful for this because in terms of life circumstances and health, it has been pretty brutal. I ended the year with a sick cat and a bone-deep exhaustion and frustration over my inability to move as much as I would like to and as much as I need to. I did so well throughout most of the year at consistently exercising despite my deep hatred of the process, and then in the last couple of months my body said no, no thank you, no more of this. It said be still. It said stop.
I am not what you would call good at listening to the messages my body sends me, so they grow increasingly desperate and frenzied until I'm forced to heed them, and then I collapse and fall into the depths of despair. I rage and feel sorry for myself and curse the useless meat sack I'm trapped in, and everything is altogether pretty bleak.
If I have one overarching resolution for 2025, it would be to be kinder to my body, gentler with its limitations, more respectful of all it still continues to do for me. I'm still alive, after all. It's gotten me this far and hopefully we have miles more to go together, so I need to learn to be in fellowship with it rather than continuing this adversarial relationship. I used to feel a complete disconnect from it, like it was an alien creature and I was outside of it trying to force it to respond to me. I felt no ownership of it. Now I do, and I don't hate it most days, and the logical next step seems to be to change the way I treat it and the way I speak to and about it.
To this end, another resolution I have is to prepare more food for myself, to spend less on delivery and less on ready-made, processed frozen foods and actually spend some time in my kitchen. This is a huge ask because I hate cooking, and even when I don't hate it, I get no pleasure from it. It's a necessity, something I have to do to keep going. I'm not expecting to love it or to develop a newfound zest for it, only to force myself to do it at least a couple of times a week. Small goals.
The common argument these days seems to go that the new year is arbitrary,, that resolutions are pointless because there's nothing special about January 1 that means we'll suddenly find ourselves able to do the things we previously couldn't. While there's truth in this, it feels, to me, so joyless and unnecessarily cynical, which is a way of being that I have never naturally embodied. I love an arbitrary reason to start anew. I need all the motivation I can get, and if turning the page from 2024 to 2025 gives me the illusion of a fresh start, I'm going to take it. It's fun to dream, to plan for a future where I'm capable of more than I'm currently doing. It's fun to imagine all the possibilities the next 12 months could hold. If the past is anything to go by, most of my resolutions will fall by the wayside pretty quickly, but that's not the space we're dwelling in today. Today is for optimism and intention and, yes, hope.
Here are some other things I want for this year.
More creating. Writing and submitting poems, sending out newsletters, maybe reviving the defunct Stephen King blogging project.
More reading, which is not a difficult task for me, but specifically more reading that challenges me. I have recently been acutely aware of my brain atrophying, finding it more and more difficult to absorb new information, to focus on anything even slightly complex, to learn things. I want to read some nonfiction, some dense fantasy, some new poetry. I still intend to read for escapism, as many popcorn thrillers and horror novels and queer young adult romances as authors can give me, but sprinkled with more difficult texts. I used to be so good at this. I used to take notes while I read and write extensively about books. I miss it.
More movies, and maybe some that aren't horror. After watching and loving The Shop Around the Corner, I'm interested in watching more black and white movies in particular, if only I can find ones that don't irritate me. Ones with less singing would be good. Maybe also filling in some of the gaps in my pop culture knowledge, including finally watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and some popular rom coms. And more horror, of course, because I am who I am.
More developing new skills. Learning to roller skate, making my own perfume oils/soaps/candles, baking, different styles of hair braiding, reading the tarot cards I've had for a year and have barely touched. Playing guitar? Knitting? It's a great big world with so many things in it, I could do anything.
More love and deepening relationships. More meeting internet friends in person, trusting people with my heart and my feelings, having vulnerable conversations. More consistent texting/calling/voice messaging, as I'm able, as energy and health allows. More finding offline spaces where I can go to be connected to people who care about the things I care about.
Less social media. Less mindless scrolling to fill the void or to soothe the anxiety. It never does that, but I keep trying to make it. Less energy to places that don't make me feel good and in fact make me feel pretty bad. Less screen time.
Less apologizing for who and how I am. Less guilt over things that don't warrant it. Less forcing myself to fit a mold that makes other people happy but doesn't allow me to be a true version of myself. Less accepting treatment I don't deserve because I'm afraid it's all I'm going to get. Less punishing myself for perceived failures that aren't actually real.
Less being ruled by anxiety and self-doubt. Less accepting things the way they are. Less defeatism.
Less impulse purchases. Less accumulating things just for the sake of having things. I do like having things, especially when they're pretty, but it might be nice to buy with more intention, with thought toward how things will fit into my space and if I really need them.
Maybe incorporating some meditation. Maybe finding ways to move my body that don't cause pain. Maybe seeing a godforsaken rheumatologist, finally. Maybe romance with someone who is willing to offer me more than scraps? Or maybe not, but maybe something unconventional to fulfill that desire. This list is for dreaming big. Why not?
I know this is a lot. In years past, I've tried to pare down the resolutions to the absolute bare minimum, to include only things that seemed likely. But this year I'm going for maximalism. If I hope as hard as possible for as many things as possible, maybe that will open up a space where some of them can bloom and grow. Why limit myself? The year might not contain any of these things, but it could. I might not do any of these things, but I could. For now, let me exist in the held breath before the song begins, when there's the potential for it to be the most beautiful thing you've ever heard.
What are your resolutions, if you have them? Or your hopes for the year, or your goals, or however you want to phrase it? I would love to know so I can be your obnoxiously overenthusiastic cheering section. And if you don't have any because you're too afraid of what might be in store, I feel that and I understand. I approached the new year with great trepidation, trying not to spook it into rebellion. But this is my rebellion, to recklessly, chaotically, hopefully make my intentions known and power them with my stubborn determination to find joy. And, if I can't find it, to forge it myself.
I like to come up with a word for the year in addition to resolutions, and this year I don't have one yet. Something to think about.
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