New Year Goals

It’s a new year. Three days late, but I was busy. I haven’t exactly managed to keep any of my resolutions from previous years, but I have hope yet.

I want to be more reflective. Grow a little bit more. Become more mature, a better person even. If I can put words to who I am, I can see myself clearly. Perhaps I can even learn my flaws and how to move beyond them. And then I can try and muster the effort to do so.

I also want to keep a record so I can remember. Sometimes, I’m scared by how much I forget, the little moments at the edge of memory. That feeling of the something I used to know, the vague sense of deja vu, just beyond the mind’s grasp.

Maybe I can read this one day, and remember the emotions, long after the events that caused them. My emotions feel like wildfire sometimes the way they burn and burn and I can’t help but feel more and more. But afterwards, I can only remember that these events happened but not the debilitating anguish, the heart wrenching longing, the ennui, the malaise, and sometimes the unadulterated exuberance that accompanied them. Like ashes, I remember there was a blaze, but can no longer sense the searing heat.

Maybe I can refer back for this record for inspiration one day. We are the sum of our experiences, after all. The following entries will encapsulate my life this year: an addition to what I know.

In the process, perhaps I can improve on my writing skills. The saying is “practice makes perfect,” and I have certainly not practiced in a long time.

January 3, 2016

Today, I invited my friends over to the apartment for dinner. There are four of us usually, but I invited an old high school friend who happened to be in town. Seeing him again, I was stricken by how much I’ve changed. High school was not so long ago, but our friendship is almost a memento of who I used to be.

I was younger then, and I believed that I needed to be better than everyone. Life was endless comparisons to my peers. When I was outshone, I was criticized, never explicitly, but the implicit message I internalized was heard was loud and clear. If they can, why can’t you? I cannot recall praise from those I most craved to receive it from. And I put them on such a high pedestal, that when my achievements were admired by my peers, I thought poorly of them. Yet I basked in their compliments, and became narcissistic. I lacked confidence and compensated with overwhelming arrogance. I told myself I was accomplished and driven. If someone was better in one field, they had flaws in others that were much worse. I was envious, and wanted to possess the culmination of everyone’s best traits. I acted if I already was such a person.

Even an amateur Instagram user these days knows which angles and filters to use in order to produce a selfie with optimal aesthetic appeal. Perhaps it is the vanity of youth, the yearning to appear to others more beautiful than we are. Similarly, I learned how to filter away my shortcomings and present only the angles I wanted others to see. I tried to be the girl who had everything. My friends met this girl, and liked her. They empathized with the need to be more. After all, birds of a feather flock together. We strove for the top, could never quite reach it, but we definitely didn’t care for those below us. Except that was me, too, and I tried so hard to hide it, that I even fooled myself. Instead of working to improve my flaws, I only worked to hide them. Of course, that only aggravated the problems. I was struggling, unhappy, and I couldn’t see that.

My friend reminded me of that imaginary girl from my past, because he is still in that place. I’ve never known his motivation, but I sense that he has that same hunger from never having enough. Yet, he dismisses those who have even less. He has lucrative career prospects, but is unsatisfied. He condescends to jobs he finds less intellectually stimulating.

I am different now. My future goals are now easily reachable, it’s a matter of when, not if. I want to own my own place in the city. I want to live a life full of love. And when I can, I want to explore new places, add a little spice to my life. I have learned to be satisfied with the little things in life. I have already found a job that will enable these dreams to become reality. And from there, I will grow organically.