My First New Year’s Resolution
Okay, so it’s not really my first New Year’s resolution. Usually I don’t spend much time focusing on this holiday, or any holiday really. Birthdays, anniversaries…that’s all stuff that causes you to have to stop and take a broad look at your overall timeline, and I much prefer to live in the here and now (see Instagram post below).
A photo posted by Carter Ashby (@carterashby30) on Dec 22, 2015 at 10:09am PST
But this year I decided to indulge in a little of the energy that surrounds the shift from one year to the next, that generally meaningless and arbitrary moment that society has made such a symbol out of…I decided to make a symbol out of it, too.
I’m a person who has led a generally easy and blessed life, and I don’t take that for granted. I’m grateful to the universe, God, my family, and everyone around me for how blessed my life is, and I don’t like to complain. So it shocked me when, for the first time ever, I took a look back and said to myself, “2015 really sucked.” I made myself evaluate the words. Were they true? Had it really been that bad? On the surface and from an outside-looking-in perspective, it wasn’t bad at all. But from inside my head and heart and soul…yeah, this was easily the worst year of my life. The absolute worst.
As the year ended, I took stock of everything I’d gone through. I let the negative drop off of me like dead weight and I inhaled and I started making decisions about where to focus my energy. I came to the conclusion that my energy should always go to my children, without question. Being a mother is the best part of my identity, that’s a given. But I haven’t really allowed myself to put my identity as a writer front and center. Bad relationships and the negative opinions of others had been sucking too much of my energy away (although it’s actually more complex than that, that’s the gist of it).
So that’s my New Year’s Resolution: to pour my heart and soul into myself; to let dead weight fall away instead of trying to revive it and make it better; to write my heart out and revel in the thrill of it; to spend as much time as possible in that place of contentment where I am truly myself.
Writing is my obsession and I’ve come to realize that instead of trying to temper that obsession with moderation and self-discipline, I need to give into it–feed it, feed off of it, become it. This is who I am, and if it causes relationships to fall away, I can accept that, because even as I’ve experienced this loss, I’ve also experienced the gain of friendships that make more sense and more impact because of it.
What about you? I’d love to hear about your New Year’s resolutions or just general life ephiphanies…I can’t be the only person taking herself too seriously this year 
