Standing still and moving forward.

At the end of every year I always do two things. One, an apartment deep clean where I take everything out of every cabinet, every shelf, every drawer, and every closet and scrub down surfaces, purge things I no longer want or need, and reorganize. And two: make my New Year’s resolutions.

It’s a good time to do both because I usually have two or three weeks off from work for the holidays and the free time allows me time to clean without a deadline along with the downtime needed to reflect on the previous year and all my goals for the twelve months ahead.

Plus, you know, when else would you make a New Year’s resolution?

This year, as I was reorganizing my “pantry” (AKA a three-tier metal cart from IKEA), I joked that my New Year’s resolution should be to stop buying pasta every time I want to make pasta. Because I had no fewer than 10 boxes of pasta on that three-tier IKEA cart. To my defense, they were all different varieties: angel hair, fettuccine, ziti, rigatoni, even an elusive bucatini. But for someone whose entire pantry consists of a three-tier IKEA cart, it was a little excessive.

I feel like there’s a metaphor in those pasta boxes somewhere. Don’t take on more than you need? Any pasta is better than the perfect pasta? Use your resources more wisely?

I don’t know. But anyways, in 2021 I pledge to use up my cavatappi before I buy a cavatelli.

2020 was a clusterfuck. To put it lightly. And I felt like a lot of my year was spent standing still. Figuratively and literally.

I stayed at home most of the year, only venturing outside for groceries. I didn’t lose weight but I didn’t gain weight. I didn’t pay down my credit card debt but I didn’t really add to it.

Even though everything was happening around me, nothing really happened to me. Or for me.

I was just still.

I did, though, have a lot more time last year to reflect, to think about my goals, to make plans for the future.

Earlier in 2020, privileged with some extra time taken from no longer having to spend two hours a day commuting, I sat down and mapped out a five year plan for some of my biggest big-picture goals. I thought about what I wanted in life, broke everything out into manageable chunks, and assigned different things to different years and quarters of those years.

And I’ve been working off of that for months.

Sure, I’ve already had to go back and adjust some of the timelines. While I crushed some of my micro goals, others I fell behind on. But, weirdly, I was OK with that. Because I was still moving forward. My “five year plan” was there and gave me a good game plan for what to focus on when. Gave me a good roadmap to get me to where I want to be. Eventually.

Having that spreadsheet all mapped out and ready made planning “resolutions” pretty easy this year. I have my year mapped out already, with all my micro-goals for bigger goals set, broken down into three-month increments.

There’s nothing too crazy change-my-life-completely on my list. And it’s probably really boring for anyone other than me. It’s really mostly just content and traffic and social media and income goals for my blog (my other blog). And financial goals of paying down that credit card and making more money.

That said, there are a few other things that I do want to do this year…

Obviously, I want to travel again. But I guess that’s all still up in the air.

Obviously, I want to date again. But I guess that’s all still up in the air.

I want to start a skincare routine because my current one consists of washing my face in the shower, if I shower.

I want to grow my nails again because without being able to get monthly no-chips I started biting them all off again.

I want to move more, because in the pandemic I got really lazy and now get out of breath just getting my mail.

I want to move to a new apartment that isn’t ten million degrees in the summer (although I do say that every year…).

And, yes, I want to stop buying pasta every time I want to make pasta.

I hope you had a happy New Year or, at least, as happy of a New Year as you could. 2020 was pretty shit for most of us, so here’s to 2021 and the whole year ahead!