Who will survive in America?

Last night at midnight, while piles of glitter floated onto the mass of drunk bitches behind me, I found myself alone on my friend Helena's balcony. At the time my intent was to avoid several people, but the more I consider it,  I was probably actually avoiding temptations I would have, things I would do simply because I didn't have the willpower not to. I chugged a plastic wine glass of champagne and looked at the moon when the clock hit midnight, waited for the glitter to fall and the cheers to stop, and then my moment of silence was over and the party sucked me back in like a vacuum, like I'd never been gone.

I've been having trouble thinking of decent resolutions this year — everything I say sounds corny and typical, like "get good grades" and "go running more often." Those are filler resolutions, things you say when you don't know what changes you would really like to make, what kind of efforts you really deserve to put on your shoulders. I thought maybe if I made a list on here, I would feel held accountable, but to be honest I don't feel any obligation. Last night while I was out on that balcony, I tried so hard for those few seconds to tell myself that I was shaking of bad 2011 chakra, that I was letting go and moving on and forgetting, but I was lying to myself. I was mourning.

Too much happened last year. Death, pain, betrayal, injury, losing who I was. It's funny because you would think my reaction to the New Year would be happy but it means that time is passing, that these things really happened, and they're behind me. That I may start to forget. 

Resolutions are excuses to not face the past, but the past created us. If we forget, we'll never really grow, and we certainly won't get any stronger. Making false promises at the beginning of every year is nothing but a flighty attempt at consoling ourselves for how shitty life can be sometimes, and I'm not having any more of it. Fuck New Years Resolutions — I will spend the next year remembering 2011 and the mistakes I made so that I won't make them again. Why do I have to put that on a bullet point list? 

I am done letting people take whats mine. I am done worrying, and I am done forgetting how fucking amazing and beautiful and smart and entirely capable I am and letting myself fall backwards to average. I will not push the past under the rug — I will let it make me strong again and let it make me feel alive, so  next year I can dance under the glitter rain with everyone else when the clock strikes twelve.

Happy 2012,

Loch.