on being hungry

I've hesitated over writing the customary round-up post, hashing out all that happened last year, ruminating over what the new will bring. I was absurdly excited for 2012. I felt almost prophetic about the whole thing. Like a full-body goosebump. And it's not that 2012 was bad, per se, but it was not...great. I mean, hush. It was wonderful, in so many ways. It was great! Great things. I don't want to list them. They were there. They existed. It's not that I believe in tempting fate, but - almost right out of the gate, 2012 threw a few curveballs, sort of alarmingly in proportion to how sure I was that it would be the best yet. So it was a year. It happened. Maybe that's what I can say about the year: it happened. It also happened FAST. Did anyone else feel that? That it was just the speediest year ever? It was January, I was making resolutions, I made some tea, and then I blinked and it was 2013.

So I don't know. I'm feeling more cautious about what is to come. Not pessimistic or bitter (I'm leaving bitterness behind), but just - less concerned. Or less...like, what is a new year, really? It's just switching the calendar on my wall, changing out the pages of my datebook. It is nothing more or less than yesterday or tomorrow. We make some tea, we blink, we pick up a book. We wake up, we turn the page.

I have made some resolutions for 2013, although I'm not sure I want to call them that. I didn't really accomplish the things I set out to last year - I didn't find a perfect strapless bra (newsflash: such a thing does not exist), I didn't finish War & Peace. So this year, it's less what I want to accomplish and more...what I want to enact. Just what I am already doing that I would like to do more of. I would like to move more. I would like to indulge more. I would like to collaborate more. I would like to love more.

And this is going to sound antithetical, but I think it actually makes sense: I would like to stop setting goals for myself. I make more lists than most anyone I know, and I LOVE them. I enjoy nothing more than a carefully plotted list of the day, week, season, year, tasks aching to be crossed off. It offers such an intense feeling of control over my life - which is, of course, a fallacy. I struggle with my need to control. You'll know this if you've ever lived with me, and found me adjusting a stack of mail on the kitchen counter, the placement of a chair that was two inches to the left when I woke up and has mysteriously moved two inches to the right and IF IT DOES NOT MOVE BACK I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FUNCTION.

I believe in accomplishment bestowing contentment. I believe in forward motion. But the real problem with my incessant list making is my belief that if I accomplish all the items on my list, if I'm able to place a careful check beside each item, I'll achieve some previously unmet level of happiness. It is just the list standing between me and where I'm meant to be, the frequency at which I should be vibrating to live my best life. So I'm forever staring at these unfinished lists ("Write 50 pages of novel this week; visit 12 museums this month") and berating myself for how I'm sabotaging my own happiness; when, in reality, there is no magical pinnacle of achievement that will be the permanent solution to my feeling unfulfilled. Even if I were to finish my novel tomorrow, I'd be staring down the fact that I haven't seen the humpback migration, and by god I won't be complete until I do.

So. Let's focus on what the lists are really about, which is my desire to move towards happiness. Rather than a litany of uncompleted tasks, I'm going to just try to do more of what I know fills me up. I'll continue turning my apartment into more of a home. I'll continue writing, maybe a little more each day, if that's what feels right. I'll continue seeing my friends, making them more of a priority, allotting them the time they deserve. And I'll make more friends. I'll travel more. More New York. More Broadway Bodies. I'll take more classes and learn more and try more new things. And I'll do less of what makes me unhappy, like watching Law & Order: SVU on Netflix for 6 hours straight, except for when that would really make me happy, in which case it's just fine.

Can "more" be the theme for the year? A slow, steady more-ing. Fill it up. Start now.