I'm not going to talk you out of your resolution.

[12-30-20]

When Chloe was ten years old she made a resolution on New Year's Eve to not eat gluten for a set amount of time because she suspected (through my suspecting) that she was celiac/intolerant. When she would eat gluten she would get violently ill. Our house was gluten free but she would joyfully eat all the offerings from others and then be so sick.

It has been eight years since her resolution and she is happily gluten free to this day. Chloe, and her dad, are what Gretchen Rubin in her Four Tendencies work calls Upholders. They are the kind of people who LOVE being drawn into the New Year's resolutions because they click inside the accountability of the declaration and the turning of the calendar. They are able to hold themselves accountable while also using things like a gym membership or telling people about it as a way to stick to it. They are the Gregorian calendar's dream. Give them a planner and a plan and shit gets done. I don't find them to be able to flow all that well, if there was a plan and a time, then it really needs to happen and they will show up early. Their resolution will happen.

Now Chloe's mama (me) is a rebel. And rebels don't play well with accountability, especially in trying to set resolutions. In fact, we (I) prefer using less main stream things like Sabbats and Astrology and definitely the Moon to make our more pronounced declarations of time and celebration. We like to try things on, play, refuse what we say we want and then find our way back again. We flow with the moon and that thing we said we were going to do for 30 days in a moment of rebel amnesia will last 5 days. Maybe. If you get us a planner make sure it has the moon phases in it but know that it will become the first draft for our book and we will put our plans on a sticky note, somewhere. We are incredibly good at iterating into our next becomings. We will probably change our hair, our clothes, our mind and our feelings a few times on New Year's Eve. One of my kids is a rebel and we get each other. The rest of the family can find us a bit complicated. 'No,' is usually our first answer before the actual answer.

I also live with three (goodness me, three) questioners. Questioners do just that, ask a lot of questions. My questioners are headstrong and filled with an energy I'll never know. They are the ones who wake up and ask you how you slept, how you are, what your plans are even if they aren't totally listening to the answer; because they are thinking of their next question. When New Year's Eve comes around they are filled with the curiosity of the resolution, they have some ideas, some choices. They want to know what is for dinner and what time dinner is and if we are doing anything special for New Year's Eve. If they get passed the endless possibilities for a resolution, and it holds deep meaning and makes all the sense in the world, they will do it. If they have rituals, they will do them. With my questioners, there tends to be a lot more words, long lists and also the crossing off once complete.

The final kiddo in this house is an obliger and she doesn't like it. She'd rather be known as a rebel while many of us rebels would love to be able to have the obliger's ability to respond to external expectations to help ground us. On New Year's Eve she loves the idea of the resolution but it will be gone tomorrow if there isn't someone doing it with her or holding her to it. She has learned to ask us to support anything she wants or needs to do with check ins and praise. Praise goes a long way in her getting it done. She likes cute calendars but they won't serve any purpose other than hanging on her wall and in March the page will still be on January. If her friends are making resolutions, she will too. If her friends aren't a part of her resolution, it likely will fade away quietly and she'll insist she never really wanted to anyway.

Over the years my inbox and Instagram feed have filled up with all the reasons we shouldn't make resolutions. Some talk about goals or intentions, picking a word of the year or how diets don't work (they don't) and how resolutions can leave us feeling bad about ourselves and put too much pressure where we just need some space.

The thing is, even as a rebel, there is an overwhelmingly nostalgic feeling about the turning of the calendar from one year to the next. It may be arbitrary, but there is some sort of magic in the air when people stay up till midnight just to kiss someone in that first second of a new beginning.

What I do now is I think about the person I want to be. I think about where I'm not showing up. I think about my dreams. I think about my North Star. I think about my place. I think about my heart. I think about what I'm envying in others or my current infatuations.

Then I decide who I want to be to guide my year. Last year I wanted to be someone who was much more conscious of the ways my money was being spent. I decided to only buy second hand or from artists, to buy my food from local grassfed meat farms and local vegetable farms. I knew it wouldn't be a 100% deal, I just wanted to be someone who...

From that decision I started growing my own food, found a huge freezer for free for preserving, learned to can, got chicken, joined a winter CSA, continued selling second hand in my shop, found amazing artists, donated a whole lot of things that were in my way of being who I wanted to be and got very clear on my sacred aesthetic.

There are no rules, I wouldn't follow them if there were. It isn't a resolution but it is wrapped up in the feeling of what a New Year's resolution is: change. And change, well, I love it. I cherish it. I live into it.

This year I want to be someone who tends to her body and lives into the deliciousness and wonder of beauty inside of space.

Something like that. I'm starting to honor my physical body in new ways and going to 12875 doctor appointments and dealing with things I don't want to think about, but need to. I am in peri-menopause. I'm open to movement finding me, inviting me in. I'm planning to get a haircut, first in two years. I'm making sure our home goes to the next level of less plastic and waste and invites in earth conscious products only.

As my sacred aesthetic gets more clear space continues to open. I love making space and imagine it will always be my thing.

I usually decide on a calendar by February so there won't be an actual page to turn but deciding on who I want to be happens now. It has been happening all along, through this past year of 2020. It is born of all years past. Tonight I can harness the sparkling cider anticipation of a beginning. The feeling of a beginning.

I will never refuse the energy and feeling of possibility and change. So, go ahead, make a resolution or don't. And, tell me, who do you want to be?

(I want to be someone who...)