New Goals, Same Direction
26: reflecting on the year, my goals for 2024, celebrating year 3 of a poem a day, and advice on forgiving yourself
“Hold on to the memories, they will hold onto you.”
I am a sucker for new starts. The beginning of the year feels fresh and clean, and I feel ready for the wear and tear of new adventures and experiences. To wrap up the last year, I enjoy reflecting on experiences I’m grateful for, what I want to do more of, and what I never want to do again. For example, I’m so thankful for my work-from-home days with my son. I definitely want to have more game nights. And I’ll be looking for a new nail salon with a new trusted eyebrow waxer in 2024. (End of an era with Tao 🩶) This year, I am creating more than just goals for the new year, I want to reflect on where I’ve been and where exactly I want to go. I know I can’t ever plan everything out completely, but if I know where I’m wanting to go, it’ll be easier to get there.
Strategizing my Life
I have always loved video games, spanning from computer games to Wii to PS4 to Nintendo Switch. I very much enjoy jumping into a story game and playing out the quests and working hard to beat difficult levels planned out for me. But the game I have put the most hours into as an adult (as a kid, it was definitely Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii) is the Sims 4. The freedom of the story, the hilarity of the animations, and the silly situations I could get my Sims into very much differed from games of my past.
The beauty of Sims for me was the ability to have multiple save-games, to be able to make the game what I wanted on whatever day I played. Some of my saves were for recreating Steven Universe characters, or making an alternate universe with names mirroring my family in real life (Abby Deer). I got to baby 45 in the 100 Baby Challenge and built a full version of the Arendelle castle in build mode. But my all-time favorite creation was my wizarding family of writers and artists, spanning 6 generations with a magical bakery and a whole cemetery of family ghosts in the courtyard. Sadly, I put too much work into this story, making the save-game lag aggressively. It is now impossible to play and I am devastated every time I think of that insanely long family tree I worked so hard to keep going.
So, I started playing Animal Crossing, another simulation game. I started around the time of Covid and I quickly found myself overwhelmed. Each player would get one save-game option on their account. This meant it was harder to start over and my decisions were more finale. And here’s when I realized that these life simulation games really did simulate life, because they completely stressed me out. After a couple months, I stopped playing it. If I was going to get this anxious about deciding where to build an imaginary bridge on my digital kawaii island, I might as well be stressed about things in my real life. (Does anyone else get this stressed about Animal Crossing or am I playing it wrong? lol)
As much I love video games, decisions of all kinds stress me out. Games like these give the freedom of choosing what kind of story you want to make for your characters just like reality gives you the freedom of choosing the kind of life you want to make for yourself. I very much planned out my wizard family story, but wasn’t able to plan things out in Animal Crossing that same way. I overthink my story dynamics like I do in real life. What am I meant to do next? What should I do with my life? What matters most to me? Decisions and goals and directions— oh my!
Thankfully a longtime friend sent me an article that made my organizational heart skip a beat. I could strategize my life like a company would strategize their business goals. Because of my short attention span, it took me a couple days to read it, but I am excited to strategize with my husband for our years to come. Our anniversary is right next to New Year’s so the timing fits perfectly! I’m really looking forward to talking through what we really want from life; to identify and reflect on my own personal goals, our goals as a couple, and our goals as a family. It would be surprising if I didn’t write a post about that, so I guess— watch out for that in the new year!
“I’ve been wakin’ up smilin’. Workin’ out, sleepin’ in, takin’ vitamins.”
Resolutions
There are some things I always start anew. Going into a new year means I start a new journal, as I have since I was in elementary school. (This girl’s always been a writer.) I also plan to continue writing a poem for every day of the year, as I have the last 3 years. I also want to continue writing one blog post a week and one paid-exclusive post monthly. I think resolving to continue doing something is a great goals to set for those who want a taste of success. Writing a poem every day has been my only consistent yearly win. When it comes to resolutions I have not followed through on, it is many. But the two biggest and most important for me are ones that I plan to complete this year. The first is t, “do a singing thing” and the second is to “do a gym thing.”
For those who may not know, I love to sing and have been singing since I can remember. I was in choir in grade school, musical theatre in high school, and in an a cappella group in college, but now— other than singing worship at local churches— I do not have any other singing outlet that isn’t my car or my house. To be honest, I very much want to professionally record myself singing and release it on streaming platforms. If I had a song chosen, an arrangement, a recording, and unwavering confidence, this would have happened years ago, but I do not. I need to make decisions on how to move forward with these things, but I WANT to do them. I NEED to do them. And I shall— in 2024, I say!
As all of y’all already know, the gym has not ever been a welcoming place for me and my fuller figure. However, I am feeling a pull now more than ever about going to the gym for lots of reasons, including giving myself a place to work off stressful energy, being able to attempt some of the 44-song challenge, and just feeling better overall. Though, at this point, I am actually more scared about the changes I am sure it will make in my body and how others could mistake that as invitations to comment on my body. I know sometimes when I wear certain clothes, I can get comments on how it looks like I’ve lost weight. People frame those words as the whole compliment, as if losing weight is always good in and of itself. There are plenty of people out there who think they’re helping— but are indeed not— that need to just take things as they are and calm down. I think this is my biggest hurdle overall in my life currently: to give more meaning and importance to my own opinions and views, and less to the opinions and views of others. Ignoring comments about my body are just one part of that goal.
“So here’s the bad news: I’m coming for everyone and I’m coming on strong, new hair and new shoes.”
Sharing Parts of Me
I’ve written a poem every day since 2021. This means I have written at least one poem on or about every day, totaling to 365+ poems every year for the last 3 years. I will say I feel like a lot of my inspiration this year went to writing this blog, but I want to challenge myself to continue putting energy into both my poetry and my blog this upcoming year, and possibly all the years of my life. I think writing poetry is just the language of my processing and I feel like it’s a necessity for my mental health more than it is a challenge to it.
Sharing my art or anything I’m proud of is so hard for me. I need to allow myself the freedom of creating and being happy about sharing it because I like it. I want to be my own number one fan. This goes back to being able to give other people’s views of me less meaning. But the truth of the matter is, there are people I care about whose opinions are meaningful to me. And that’s fine and healthy by itself, but only if I assign similar or ideally greater meaning to my own opinions of me. And I do believe in myself, sometimes, but I need to tip the scale to be closer to 80/20 than I am to 50/50 right now. I want and need to be able to share the parts of me with those I care about, even if it’s hard. I want to learn to better respect myself and, if I can be strong in that, I can communicate more effectively and become closer to those around me.
Seasons of Gab
This year my mind and heart were opened up to new ways to be. My internalized identity has somewhat held me back, but this year, I hope to stay open-minded about parts of me changing and rearranging, coming and going, and all that jazz. Something that used to be a bit scary to me is the idea that everything can and will change. Now, I can spin it positively and realize all the hard days are just seasons that will come and go, which is relieving. Hard days of not getting any sleep with a sick toddler will come and go. Feelings of grief, frustration, and sadness will come and go, as well as anger, joy, confusion, and all other emotions. There are no happily-ever-afters, but there is also no end once things start getting good.
In the spirit of change, I want to give myself space to highlight the highs and lows of the year. The lowest being my health issues ending in my gallbladder removal, my favorite webcomic being ruined by frightening plot turns, and the experience of my neighbor suddenly passing. The highest from the year were my finding out about my gallstones being the cause of my mysterious pain, my son’s love of cuddles and kisses, the start of my blog, and our new car— who we named Josephine! This year hasn’t been perfect and there were many times that were the opposite of perfect, but there were many times that felt close to perfect as well. I want to honor them all.
“The person that you were has died. You’ve lost the sparkle in your eyes. You fell for life, into its traps. Now you want to bridge the gap. Now, you want that person back.”
Forgiving Yourself
I tend to be more optimistic than most, especially at the beginning of a new year. But not everyone is like that. Even with the most embarrassing and/or questionable things I’ve done in my life, I always lean on one of my core beliefs that everything happens for a reason and goes how it should. As regular, imperfect people, we are constantly making mistakes and doing our best with the tools we have been given. As we grow and learn, our toolbox expands of how to be and care for our best selves. We aren’t meant to know the best way to go every time we’re presented with a choice.
There may be people reading this that, like me, perhaps struggle to separate their emotions or past actions from their identity. There may be parts of your past you regret, especially looking back now with the tools you’ve acquired since that would have led you to make different decisions. As hard as it is to do, give yourself a new year’s gift of forgiveness. Imagine a younger version of you, maybe the version of you that made the mistake or an even younger version, and embrace them. No version of you deserves to be beaten the way you’re beating yourself up. Tell this version of you that it’s okay to make mistakes, because no one may have told them that. You have to tell them you love them and truly mean it. And if you’re not able to genuinely love them, you need to find a way to learn, probably in therapy. I saw a TikTok the other day that listed a bunch of therapy breakthroughs you may need to hear. I think there’s one for everyone to be inspired by.
Envisioning the Year
Lastly, I would recommend— especially to those like myself who want to get more crafty in the new year— creating a vision board and/or a “becoming board” (explained above). I’m a visual learner and if I know what it looks like, I can recognize it when I get there. It’s also a really fun little party to have with friends: crafting your vision boards and talking about goals. I also think it’s great to create a team of encouragement. Throughout the year, remind your friends of their goals and cheer them on when they hit their milestones. No one is in this alone.
In the end, whether you read the Harvard article about strategizing your life and plan to apply it or you’re cutting out pictures of the house projects you plan to accomplish in 2024, I hope you find yourself in a better, more self-loving spot in the new year. Take it from a Gab who thought herself not good enough of a writer to create a blog. Taking the jump has been so validating for me. Do the things that make you happy, that feed your soul, and make the plot of your life interesting. And then let me know what happens… I’m sure it’ll be a great story to tell!
Time for some TLCCC
Treating myself to: Vanilla Bean Frappe with chocolate drizzle and cinnamon at Starbucks ✌🏽
Listening to: All my playlists as I reorganize them all into folders which I crazily didn’t know existed until week before last. (Thanks Caleb!)
Crafting: a late Christmas gift 🙈♥️ and soon— vision boards!
Craving: Cooper’s Hawk’s barrel-aged house blend 🍷 🤌🏽
Caring SO much about: Making plans for the new year!! Taking January bookings now 😝