Our Woman in 2016
The best version of myself has a leather jacket and expensive jeans and lots of lean muscle and no debt and her own apartment and is either a spy or the writer of a TV show about a spy.
She is a stranger with my face, and I know myself, the one here and now, enough to know she is not going to show up in 2016 (I must not want her to show up) (yet).
What I do want in the coming year is for the best versions of myself from this past year, the versions I have known to exist, to make more regular appearances.
I was at my best this year when I drew pictures and mailed them to my friends. When I took five minutes to scribble “happy birthday, love Tim” on a picture of Tim Riggins and email it to his number one fan. When I spent hours making a series of seven-second videos to make myself and one other person laugh. I think of doing little things for people constantly, but to follow through is a new development. More of that.
I liked the version of myself who traveled in 2015, who said yes to work trips and trips to visit friends abroad, who took advantage of opportunities to see some things.
(I ultimately had to borrow money for all of these adventures — I have a running balance of about a thousand dollars with my dad for fronting my travel expenses—and that’s not the best version of myself. But it’s a better version, at least, than a past Logan who swiped a credit card and hoped for the best. But still: More spending within my means, in 2016. More means, in 2016.)
I stopped drinking for several months this year, and that was a good version of myself. Then I started again—change is hard, and I quite like myself after one or two glasses of wine: everything just a half a turn looser. But how long is that one-to-two-glass girl around before the three-and-four one shows up (not long). The ideal Logan does one-to-two a few times a week and feels fine about it, sips soda water the rest of the time and feels fine, hits three-and-four every now and then, feels fine. I don’t know if this is possible, to be honest; that Logan may be as elusive as the spy. I may decide to stop again; no declarations here. But: Less drinking, in 2016. Less thinking about drinking, in 2016.
Another good version: post swim. Thirty minutes in a pool, a hot shower, a sweater pulled over wet hair, red cheeks, tired body, recharged mind. That’s a good Logan, I’d like to see more of her, too. (Getting her there is a real chore, how many times have I stopped outside the door of my office, right to the gym, left to the train, part of me urging myself right, go, go, go, the other part sagging left…you’re tired, you can go home, you deserve it.) More go, go, go, in 2016.
I laughed a lot in 2015. With friends, by myself, at myself. I might have laughed out loud alone — in my room, on the subway, walking down the street — more this year than any other year. A laughing Logan is a good Logan. I sought out joy this year and in turn had it come to my door. More of that, in 2016.
I didn’t want to write this. It’s been nearly two years since I stopped writing for this website. I had nothing left to say, was sick of my own voice, still am. But Mike asked, and I said yes, and then I put it off and put it off. Yesterday, I didn’t want to do it so much that I did a project that I’d been avoiding, made a joke of video that I’d been thinking about for a few weeks, photoshopped a little gift for a friend, and then another one. It was one of my most productive days in ages, born out of saying yes to writing these words and then … not writing them.
But today I am writing them, turning them into this thing that’s nothing, really, other than something I said I’d do, and now I’ve done.
2015 Logan gets things done under duress, self-imposed or otherwise: maybe not an ideal version, but a constant one. My best hope for myself in 2016 is that I will say yes to as much as possible, do the things I say yes to, and that somewhere amidst the shirking and the doing, something good might sprout and flourish.
This article is part of The Billfold’s 2015 end-of-year series, “Our Best Selves in the Coming Year.”
Logan Sachon is the co-founder of The Billfold. Follow her on Twitter: @lsach
