On Resolutions, Regrets and Saying Goodbye to 2008.

Every year I do it. I promise myself a host of things--that which I am to accomplish, that which I wish to learn, that which I wish to forget.

This year? I'm going to promise absolutely nothing. I refuse to set myself up for failure, and I will not chastise myself for not doing all of the things that I should do, want to do, or have to do. Don't get me wrong, there are things that I want to do this next year, but I'm not going to hang the pressure of a fucking resolution on them.

Good lord, I am so far from perfect in so many ways. I need to come to terms with that.

Today, I sat with a friend in a Mexican Restaurant in Capitol Hill, and she said something that stuck with me: "I'm not going to worry about that--I'm simply going to live in the present."

I don't think that I have done enough of that this year.

This year was one of regret for a whole host of reasons. I don't want to rehash any of the reasons here. This is neither the time nor the place. Recently, I was told matter-of-factly that we "all live with regrets, and if you say something like 'Oh no! Not I! I never live with regrets,' then you are full of shit."

I'll have to agree with that statement for sure. But I do think that I'm leaving those regrets with the end of 2008. No sense in worrying about the past.

This year is the year that I won't look back on very fondly at all. It's so interesting because for some people this was one of the best years of their lives thus far. It really wasn't for me. And I'm okay with that.

There were some good moments, of course. There was one this weekend that involved hanging out in Columbia Heights with friends from Atlanta and San Francisco and remembering how nice it can be to sit around eating fish and chips, watching your friends drink English pints just shooting the breeze--what a phenomenally easy dynamic. These are people I'm lucky to know and have been lucky enough to get together with as a group a couple times. I hope we do it again
in 2009.

So here's to 2009, and to living in the present and letting go of past regrets.

I hope that each of you starts this new year brilliantly. And if it doesn't work out, there's always Chinese New Year for a reset. :)

Love to you all.