Revisiting Those (20)13 Resolutions

Around this time last year, I wrote a post that detailed my New Year’s resolutions for 2013. I go back and forth about whether or not this was a good idea, whether or not it’s a habit worth continuing.

Let’s take a look at how I did on my (20)13 resolutions:

1. Run a half marathon.
2. Organize my finances.
3. Give up something for Lent again. Challenge someone else to do Lent with me.
4. Drink more tea.
5. Try real vegetarianism for at least a month. Include at least one week of serious, healthy veganism.
6. Bake a rainbow layer cake.
7. Make homemade yogurt.
8. Get back to D.C.—even if it’s just for a visit.
9. Bleed more.
10. Eat more pizza.
11. While I’m in Chicago, swim in Lake Michigan and find a coffee shop with a really good Nutella latte.
12. Go hiking/camping with Kim and Kane before they move.
13. Write a reported piece for CT that’s longer than anything I wrote in 2012.

My new home in D.C.

Overall I completed 8.5 of 13 goals, and in the grand scheme of the year, some of the goals I finished were pretty huge: I challenged myself to give up an idol for 40 days; I stopped drinking coffee (and started again, of course); I went vegan (and stopped—that is hard stuff); I moved 1,000 more miles across the country; I stopped worrying about eating salads all the time; I spent a weekend in the Wisconsin boonies with two of my best friends; and I wrote a kickass, 5-page profile of an author who didn’t want to be profiled.

Those are the things I need to remember when I look back on 2013. I scrolled through my past blog posts this morning and realized that my blog doesn’t really reflect those accomplishments. Rather, it reflects a different side of 2013: It was a very, very hard year.

And I’m not sure 2014 will be totally different.

For reference: Here is an artist’s rendering of my life.

The only thing that’s changed is that I know it now. I entered 2013 expecting it to be as grand as the year that preceded it, which was easily the best year of my life. Instead, 2013 felt like drinking from the firehose of hard life circumstances, and many of those things don’t change just because we call it a new year.

So that’s the lame part, and if you made it this far, kudos! Here’s the fun part (I guess?): I’m still making a list of resolutions this year, still putting them on the blog, and still hoping for the best in finishing them.

1. (Still) Run a half marathon. (already registered. BOOM. This is happening)
2. (Still) Bake a rainbow cake.
3. (Still) Make my own yogurt.
4. (Still) Get my finances organized.
5. Paint my bedroom. (here’s hoping this gets accomplished sooner rather than later)
6. Leave the country. (ch-ch-ch-check this one off the list, too. Also already happening. I started this list before I knew that, though)
7. Start researching/writing my book.
8. Go on a date. (…the bar is low here)
9. Blog 26 times—once every two weeks. (and the bar is high here)
10. See Kim and Kane again, one way or another.
11. Hike in Rock Creek Park.
12. Find and ask someone in D.C. to be my professional mentor.
13. Eat ramen at Toki Underground on H Street.
14. Learn to wake up without the snooze button on my alarm.

Okay, so clearly I started to run out of clever, deep goals for the year toward the end; I was mainly trying to reach 14 total goals that are not completely abstract or wildly un-accomplishable.

I mean, if we’re going to go there, it’s obvious what my goals would be:

1. Hold a sloth.
2. Cuddle a sloth.
3. Love a sloth.
4. Find a person to buy me a sloth.
5. Marry that person. ^^
6. Own a sloth.
7. Live happily ever after with my sloth.