Resolving and Evolving

The last day of the decade! Amazing how fast this time has gone.

The last day of the year is always a good time to reflect on the things that have happened to you, and especially this year, since we can go back and look at the last 10 years!

So much has happened to me in the past decade. Wow. I was so young......

Let's see. In the past decade:

(1) I've lived in multiple places - Boulder CO, Atlanta, Savannah, Texas, Oklahoma.
(2) Received my graduate degree. :)
(3) Got married and divorced. :(
(4) Got published, online and in print.
(5) Learned German & Russian.
(6) Went through 10 different jobs (not including freelance work), including: eye bank liaison, waitress, fabric store peon, legal assistant, tutor, seminar instructor, graduate teacher.
(7) Got laid off twice.
(8) Successfully spoke at national conferences.
(9) Developed severe phobia of flying and worked hard to overcome it.

Things I've learned from all this reflecting:

(1) I won't be pushed around. By anyone.
(2) I hate sitting behind a desk all day.
(3) I love traveling and learning new things.
(4) Creative people are awesome.
(5) Overly competitive and condescending people suck.
(6) I've done more than I realize I have.
(7) I don't give myself enough credit.
(8) It's easy to lose yourself but very hard to find yourself again.

I have the same ol' resolutions as always: lose weight, save more money, get published more, learn new crafting skills.

This year though, my biggest resolution is to quit spending so much time on ENVY. I have a really bad habit of looking at other people's blogs and sighing and being all melodramatic about how successful they are in comparison to me. So my resolution is to stop looking at so many of those blogs and consciously stop myself when I start to feel so envious of other people's successes. It doesn't get me anywhere except full of self-pity and apathy. I want to be prouder of myself and kinder to myself too. And part of that involves appreciating my own creative voice and not living in the perceived shadows of others.

As far as learning new crafting skills, I'd like to take on a new project each month of this year. There are a lot of skills I'd like to learn: fancy embroidery, Tunisian crochet, various tricks of couture sewing. I'd like to take on a project per month that will give me a chance to teach myself a new skill. Won't that be fun?

It's so easy to make big resolutions (like aforementioned losing of the excess kilos) but so, so hard to follow through. Why is that? I guess everyone wants to improve themselves, and at New Year's you're allowed to speak out loud of your faults that you want to change. It's like a nationwide wishing party, where most people don't really feel all that self-conscious saying negative things about themselves. I don't know how successful I'll be at my resolutions, but I did end up keeping most of my 2009 ones. So we'll see. Maybe all this wishful thinking will be good for something after all!

So HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!