Happy New Year + Resolutions

Hello, world. It's 2023. Gosh, the year sounds futuristic. I remember initiatives in college that talked about something happening by 2025. That seemed like lightyears in the future. Now, 2025 lurks just around the corner.

I doubt I've written about it here, but I love New Year's Eve. I love all things turn-of-the-new-year. Vast swaths of the gloriously-unwashed heathens (a.k.a. everyone who is wrong about New Year's), believe it to be an overrated holiday. It is not.

Here is why:

1. We are encouraged to stay up late. (but within reason. no one is expecting you to stay up until bar close.) Which is fun! As someone who accidentally stays up late, because going to bed always seems less fun than whatever I'm doing, midnight sits at the perfect level of lateness. Late enough to feel a teensy bit special, but not out of reach.

2. Society has agreed that excessive glitter and sparkles can be and should be worn and decorated with on New Year's Eve. I lean into glitter throughout the year. Most people meaningful to my life lean just as strongly away from glitter throughout the year, attempting to balance out my love of the shiny things. However, on NYE, I am in the majority. Let's all embrace the sparkle and glitter for one night a year!

3. You are entitled to a fresh start. While I don't advise making goofs on NYE, the general consensus remains that tomorrow, on January 1, you get to start anew. So in the short term, if you've had an extra glass or two of champagne and tomorrow's Hangover comes a knocking brightly in the morning bringing it's friends Guilt and Shame, you are not obligated to host them. You can just tip your hat and move on quickly. January first is your fresh start. On a larger scale, January first is the beginning of New Year's Resolutions (NYRs). Boy, oh boy, do I love me some NYRs.

Scope of NYRs:
Most people believe that NYRs are about stringing a 365 day long chain of successes together, so that on December 31st next year you get to brag "I did it EVERY DAY." Well that is an incredibly unrealistic and rather unattainable goal to be seduced by. Why take such a narrow view of success for your NYRs? No wonder you hate them; you've framed them in such a way that they suck. They are way more of a hindrance than a help

I frame my NYRs much differently. I don't aim to attain the thing every single day. Instead, my NYRs serve as a goal post for how I'm doing at the END of the year. If I want to stop biting my nails, I get the entire year to ween myself off that bad habit. If I want to "get healthier" in 2023, I have 12 months to experiment with what works for me. Maybe I spend a month speed walking, then dabble in kick boxing another. Perhaps in July, I try a flavor of healthy eating, but then in August, I try a different variety of healthy. I get to experiment with things all year, with the end goal of keeping what sticks at the end of the year and feeling overall healthier. It's much easier to get excited about a goal when you have a long runway to succeed.

Unsurprisingly, because I love NYRs so much, I have a lot of them. I actually need a place to keep my thoughts on them. I don't trust notebooks to do the trick. I often run out of a notebook before I get done with a year. Or lose one. Or I switch between them. Or I can't find my notes. Plus, the added benefit is that I type much faster than I write.

Since I have all year to work through these here, I'm easing into things in January, with the exception of my one. big. NYR.

I want to buy no new clothing this year, for the environment. Fast fashion has come to rule our shelves. It's bad. It churns shitty clothing out of precious resources, shitty clothing that will soon be abandoned. I hate it. I don't often buy fast fashion but I fall prey to it too; I have a hard time convincing myself to fork over the money for high quality clothing that lasts for a long time. Knowing this, I'm putting a moratorium on new items. (With the exception of socks, underwear, etcs. Honestly, I probably won't need to buy much of that anyway. I'm pretty set.)

Instead of buying new, I want to buy used, which takes more effort and planning. I would like to find a high-quality used clothing store near me, a place to go for some nice pieces. I also intend to get creative with my sewing machine, refashioning things I already have, or items from used clothings stores, into something new. I used to be so inventive with my wardrobe; believe it or not, I did have a very strong sense of style in high school. With our dress code, we had to wear collared shirts or sweaters, or some type of slacks or skirts. I rocked such a quirky assortment of skirts and boots and belts and clip-on earrings. I had a distinctly early 00's style, which I'm sure I pilfered from movies like 10 Things I Hate About You. However, it abandoned me in college. I sunk into the ease of jeans and t-shirts and casual wear. I'd like to find that again.

Being determined to buy used demands more planning, as well. The used clothing stores offer unpredictable wares. You never know what you will actually find. So, unlike regular shopping, where you go with a list of items and try to seek them out (because they're probably there somewhere), you have to have a list of items you're considering, and then shop somewhat regularly with an eye out for something like that. Also, when traveling, one must be prepared. If I actually want to not buy new, I either need to make sure I bring everything I need when I travel, or be willing to borrow or go without. So, I might be making my life harder than it needs to be, but this is an experiment; I'll do it for science. (I already make my life harder than necessary with my composting and all the other ridiculous things I do because I just don't know why.)

It will be difficult to cultivate any sense of style. I work from home, and comfort is queen. I rarely "get ready" for my day. So maybe that's a good start for me in this goal to both abandon fast fashion and find my style again - Get Ready Every Morning. I'll add that into January. Maybe somewhere down toward the bottom of the month.

January, specifically -

• Dry January
• January Meditation Challenge: Every day. Specifically use the guided meditations from the Insight Timer app for their January challenge
• Hang Art in the Living Room
• Floss every day
• Text my bro, Z, once a week
• Mail a letter once a week (I wrote them yesterday and forgot to send them before I left. I count it as a success still)
• Do one Spanish lesson a week
• Find a regular spanish pen pal
• Do one day of practice on my swooping at the DZ
• Drive somewhere in CA. Just drive there. Check it out. Meander. Find a coffee shop or a used book store and peruse. Enjoy being somewhere new; find some inspiration.
• Gym 4x week or do 10k steps + stretch

- Start researching my VFS options (I'll start that next week)

Other Goals for 2023:
Environment:

• Vegetarian Better: Eat meat < 2x a month (on average). I already broke down while I was super tired on the way to the airport for this early morning flight and had a trash-brekky sandwich with bacon.

Family/Friends:

• See my niece and nephew 4 times this year
• Text my siblings once a week
• Send 1 snail mail letter a week on average

Learning:
Private Pilot License; I'll visit this in a future blog
Spanish:
- Find 1 regular pen pal with Slowly app
- 30 lessons with Pahola, my private tutor

Skydiving:

• VFS Team?
• 4 MFS camp events at Tracy
• 18 swoop days
• 12 sequential days at Tracy

Home:

• Do at least one home-sitting gig, to try it

Travel Somewhere for Me:

• South America? Sailing? Paragliding? Kite surfing? Live in Mexico for a month?

BASE:

• Two BASE trips to the bridge
• Jump 3 new things

Snowboarding: Plan one big trip to Big Sky (probably for 2024 actually, but the planning must be done this year)

Health:

• Flossing. End the year as a flosser. I'm going to try to keep track of how many days I floss this year with my habit app
• 2 or 3 10k trail runs.

February,

• Tunnel Trip to El Paso for dynamic flying!
• Start planning my trip for me