this time with alacrity!

I am making a very deliberate effort to not give in to my tendency toward gloom. I started at least four different posts over the last week or so, and didn't let myself publish any of them, because they were too depressing. Today I deleted every single one.


It's not that I want to deny my sad feelings; it's just that I am so very tired of them. They make me tired. There are enough things to make me tired every day without adding to my own misery by plunging down a well of despair.

I am still grieving. I am still picking up the pieces of a very shattered life. I'm not happy -- but I want to be. For the first time, I really, really want to be. I want to try. My apathy has dissolved, and I want to be happy, and I'm scared to death. Possibility has always frightened me so much more than dead ends ever did.


I want to stop thinking about things that are unchangeably sad, and put it all as far behind me as I possibly can. Not to pretend it didn't happen, but more to hit a pause button of sorts, and focus on something else for awhile. Right now, that feels different from denial; and I fervently hope that it is.

It doesn't mean I won't have hard days. It's just kind of like an experiment, I guess. An experiment in raised expectations.

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Can I tell you a secret? I have such high hopes for this year. By the end of it, I want to look in the mirror and at photographs and see the version of my "grown up" self that I envisioned when I was 19 years old. I want to see a smile that is completely genuine, and an expression that is wide open to the world. I want to wake up in the morning and be excited; excited that I'm here, that it's another brand new day. I want to be the life of the party, the star instead of the sidekick. I want to "go confidently in the direction of my dreams." I want there to be room in me for other peoples' successes, and their failures as well. I want there to be room for boldness and spontaneity and rebellion and grace. I want to not be so fragile and afraid.

(All images via weheartit.com)

I want to learn to be who I am, and not who I think I'm expected to be. And I never want to go back.