I kind of hate this time of year. Not the winddown of the holiday madness… that’s actually kind of a relief. No, it’s the weirdness about New Year’s Eve. I really hate the idea of New Year’s Resolutions. In my opinion, if there’s something about yourself that you want to change, you freaking change it. Dates are arbitrary! Every moment of every day is the beginning of a new year, you have exactly 365 days until this very same date happens around again: it just doesn’t have a tidy little date stamp to make it look official. And most New Year’s Resolutions are cloaked in self-improvement, but are almost always about what you dislike most about yourself. Things you want to change. For instance, 48 hours from now, the entire world will become extremely concerned with how fat it is. It’s a hard time to be a person with disordered eating in their past and doubly hard to be a crusader for body acceptance. Everyone is pointing at their bits and bumps and saying how wrong, wrong, wrong it is. Wrong! As though anything that is decided by the flittering beauty ideal of the moment could be right! One image, folks: Venus of Willendorf. As that clock strikes twelve, just remember that on some New Year’s Eve in the not too distant past, a girl very much like you was wishing for a few more dimples on her thighs, pretty please.
Let’s do a little experiment this year.
Everything you want to change about yourself is a given. You don’t need the permission of a giant ball dropping in Times Square to make a change in your life, and you certainly don’t need the pressure of a starting gun and a calendar measuring your success for changing your life. You can do it anytime you want. Gradually. Sanely. Beautifully.
No, instead, give yourself a break and don’t punish yourself with your resolutions this year. Don’t say “less of this or that” but instead think “more”. More time with friends. More fresh air. More naps. More empty calorie television shows like Gossip Girl that you will enjoy without guilt or reservation. More dress-wearing or dinners on the good china. More hugs to people you love. More reminders to love yourself. More sunsets. More cups of tea or pedicures or long steamy showers. More, my dear friends, we need more in this crazy world, not less. This year, make a resolution for more. I’ll bet it’s one resolution that will be hard to keep but much more rewarding.
