Happy 2018!
By now, we are about halfway through the first month of 2018. I fully intended to publish a new year blog post soon after January 1st but I decided to take a couple weeks to reflect about this past year and to better formulate my thoughts about New Year rhetoric.
It has been a few years since I let go of at the popular phrase New Year, New You and even longer since I last made a New Years resolution. But only recently I found the reasoning on why I gave it all up.
Now, I am not saying that I gave up the celebration of a new year. On the contrary, I love the reflection that comes in the ending of a year and the potential of a new one. I love the holiday parties that bring friends and family together. And I especially enjoy spending a night of anticipation and excitement with my children when midnight strikes and we join in chorus, confetti, and hugs. It feels magical and I am alright with that feeling.
Not unlike previous years, I woke up on January 1st to email and social media proclamations of a New Year and New You! And at one point in my life, I used to sing that song loud and clear. A “new me”, meant that I could leave “old me” behind. Old me, who was naturally now older (by a day), with her old clothes and bad habits was someone I wanted to change because I had at some point convinced myself that the old me was not good enough and had to be changed.
Creating new year resolutions meant that I was resolving to be different than old me, to be better than old me, and to do more than old me. And usually after a couple weeks or a month, old me was back and I would feel defeated that I could not stick with my new years resolutions. And so it was a never-ending cycle. Until one day I decided that I would stop creating new years resolutions and eventually I stopped believing that I had to buy into the hype of a New Year, New Me.
2017, was a year of centering myself. I have not shared much here on my blog but my 2016 goals did not pan out and the devastation hit me hard. So I took the time in 2017 to recenter my personal wellness. Through this process, I came to realize that I was enough.
I did not need to improve or better me, I did not need to be more, because I was ALREADY amazing and fabulous, and I had always been. The rhetoric of a new year and the drive to conform to societal norms of being better than before had just become so ingrained that I was comparing myself with myself and feeling shitty for perceived defeat.
It is a profound realization that I am enough. And so, here we are half way through the first month of 2018 – still fabulous as ever.
I wish you happiness and joy this new year.
-Nicky
I am waring Kiyonna’s Retro Glam Lace Dress (read my review).
Read the top three posts from 2017:
- Announcing Redstreak Girl’s Indigenous Collection!
- Turning 36 And Trying Not To Give A Fuck
- Torrid Removes Squash Blossom Necklaces ** UPDATE to Dear Torrid: Stop #StealingNativeCulture. #NotmyTorrid
