I keep thinking about the first two lines of Defying Gravity:

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same

I knew it was coming, knew it had to come, but when you are in it every day you don’t quite notice. The shift that has taken place inside is becoming more apparent, and it leaves me wondering about choices and next steps and just generally, who I am. Change. It’s sometimes exciting, oftentimes scary, always necessary.

I feel like this year’s transition from one year into another is so much more impacting than former years. I mean, it only makes sense, right? After all that’s gone on this year. I’m trying to hurry up and sweep together all of the lessons I should have learned, all of the discoveries that have happened, all of the mistakes – sweep them up and put them in my pocket and carry them into next year as nothing but wisdom an continue on a new slate. A slate that promises that this year will be better than last.

I have one basic resolution this year which is not so simple, but it is necessary:

This year, I’m going to do what makes me happy and what is best for me, in every aspect of my life. Make the changes I want to make, travel where I want to travel, love who I want to love, look the way I want to look, learn the things I want to learn.

That’s so generalized and obscure, which is what I’m going for :) Honestly, I’m exhausted with the thought of making goals and then failing at them. It’s too harsh for me, right now. I just need to continue taking care of myself, continue healing and truly – just do what is best for me. If I can do that, then all of the smaller goals I’ve thought about making in this new year will fall into place, one way or another.

2009 was one fucked up year for me, wasn’t it? I mean, not all of it, of course, but when I say that I think about the BIG NEGATIVES, like my ex-partner leaving me, having to sell my home, losing my family, being financially stuck, my dog dieing. Damn, what a year. Seriously.

But there are not so fucked up things, too. Like B. Discovering my strength. Meeting new people and making new friends. The chance to recover financially, without having a mortgage to pay. Traveling.

Seriously though, I breathed a sigh of relief when the clock struck midnight. I thought about it all – the past year, EJ, my family, friends, my animals, B, my life – just everything. Then I just cried. I cried with relief that it was over. That I had made it. I cried because I was sad. I cried because I was grateful. I cried for my dog. I cried for all of it. I didn’t want to – I didn’t plan it that way. It just happened. As things do.

2010 has been good to me so far. I hope to the gods that it treats me that way most of the time :)

You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you’ll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless. – Caroline Myss