Out with the OLD

The main problem with starting out a New Year is that you have to leave the old one behind. And in that process, whether you like it or not, you leave a little bit of yourself in the past. For better or for worse.

And the past isn’t such a bad place to be. Especially when you are bad habits like talking shit about people you don’t know, eating buckets of chocolate M&Ms, spending money on tank tops that you have no intention of wearing more than once, watching trash TV instead of going outside. Yup. I’m giving up the bad stuff.

And I’m starting fresh. And that sounds just soooooooo easy, doesn’t it?

The truth is that it’s hard. It’s even harder when the bad habit is a friend that you thought you would always love, or the age you thought you would stay forever. Buh-bye, mid-twenties. Hi, rounding up.

I’m supposed to register for my first class in the Master’s program that I am hoping to complete in 3 years. 3 years. In 3 years, I will be 30. Its overwhelming, isn’t it?

See? When you get this close to thirty, you can feel yourself losing some of the old you. Your high little butt? Its still there but its just not that great anymore. The soft skin around your eyes… its wrinkling. Getting carded gets exciting again. You see your friends less and less, but the time you spend with them because so much more important. Its coming. Just wait, you little ones, you will feel it eventually too. You'll feel like letting go of the parties with friends that you don’t really like, the bickering with your boyfriend who is not perfect by any means, but so much sweeter than anyone else you can think of. You’ll let go of the jealousy and the fear – the fear that you will be alone. That someone close to you will die. That things change… because you start to realize that if you weren’t in a constant wheel of change, you’d be better left in a box, taking up storage space. And the really beautiful truth is that it’s all a part of life. It’s a natural part of life. So it’s best to just get used to it. At least that way, it won’t all be a big surprise.

In the New Year, a friend that I’ve had since 2^nd grade is going to give birth. And I’m scared because I don’t want anything to go wrong. And I’m excited because she is going to be a great mom and I’ll get to babysit. But mostly, I am anxious for it to happen. Because that makes us new, too, in a way. We’re going to have a new baby added to the group, with a new perspective on a whole new chapter of life that none of us has touched yet. And there she’ll be… going through it first. As she was the first of us to get drunk, have sex, quit school. She’s taking it on and we’re going to support her, as we did during everything else. But everything else didn’t matter nearly as much as this does. Not even close.

So I guess the whole point of a New Year is to look back and assess what we did that we’re proud of and what we’re going to do that will define us this year. That will define this very small time in our lives, the huge changes or decisions. The small steps we make or the leaps. We can go about and repeat the past or we can change something. Anything.

We can volunteer like we always said we’d do. I have an intense love for animals and I want to volunteer at an animal shelter. But the fear is that I wont be able to change their unhappy lives. That I will have to see them in cages or see them in pain and loneliness and there is nothing I can do about it. Sure a walk will be nice, but when I have to put them back in a metal cage, a little piece of me will surely die and feel worse than if I had never volunteered at all. So what other ideas do you have?

I’m going to save money. Which is great timing since the entire shopping shift has just recently come over me. I don’t want anything. I don’t need anything. I just really need a house, a husband and a family. And that will all come when it’s supposed to. Whether I’m 28 or 38. It's just not my time yet.

So I guess I’m kind of in this transition period. From young adulthood to adulthood and it’s a strange place to be. Because I’m too old now to pretend to like someone who has been my friend for years or days. I’m too old to fake being nice to someone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m a manager. I’m a girlfriend. I’m – GASP – a grown up. Its time to define that, I guess.

Maybe that’s the point: to define what that means to you. Its not about being able to wake up early and get to work on time. To work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. It's not about paying bills on time or even the act of saving money for a house. It's not about driving the best car, or wearing the best coat. It’s about the meaning behind all that. The fact that you delay gratification for the happiness of others. That you say ‘I love you’ to a friend but mean that you think they’re a good person and that they mean something, not only to you, but to the world. And that the world is a beautiful place, filled with sad puppies in cages and death – despite everything.

And all the best plans will fail. And the ones you never saw coming will make you happy. Your resolutions will shift and change with the days that make your life into something you never saw coming. And my sister will start a family when her husband comes home. And if I’m lucky, I’ll be there to see her belly grow.

And it will be wonderful. Everything.

Happy New Year, friends.