Guys, I’m just going to say it: New Year’s Eve sucks.
No, no, I’m not talking about the movie, though, judging from the commercials, that’s got to suck more than a warehouse of Dyson vacuum cleaners. I’m talking about the actual day itself.

This is a photograph of the most fun I've had on New Year's Eve. A friend and I drank Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice and watched a marathon of The Bad Girl's Club. It was also the first time I saw the Shake Weight commercial. It was amazing.
Look: I am thirty-one years old, and there are many things I’m not sad to say I’ve never done, including but not limited to riding a roller coaster, dropping acid, enjoying a Nickelback song, or wanting to try on a wedding dress. As most New Year’s Eve events sound like a dizzying combination of all of these things, I am not particularly sad to say that I have never gone out for New Year’s Eve. For me, New Year’s Eve generally means pajamas, Andre, bad television, and the comforts of my own living room — and I’m not sad about that, either.
This, of course, doesn’t mean that I am not excited about the new year. Nor does it mean that I’m not excited about another New Year’s tradition: the resolution. I mentioned in last year’s Obligatory New Year’s Post that I’m not especially great at keeping my resolutions. A lot of this has to do with the resolutions I used to make, which were generally of the DO ALL THE THINGS! variety: LOSE ALL THE WEIGHT! WRITE ALL THE BOOKS! GO OUT ALL THE FRIDAYS! I’ll make it all of a week and then end up eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cake Batter ice cream while watching a What Not to Wear marathon instead of writing on a Friday night. And though that flavor is particularly delicious and I did learn a lot about how to hide under-eye circles from Carmindy, all in all, this wasn’t particularly effective.
Last year, my resolution was basically this: find some way(s) to stay sane while my entire existence changed, much as the way an egg shell changes if you put it in a bottle of Diet Coke. Looking back, I didn’t do too badly with this. I had a few months of feeling slightly-less-than-sane, as some of my 365 posts show, but I managed to pull out of it pretty quickly, as some of my 365 posts also, thankfully, show. Really, upon reflection, I managed to keep my resolutions — and keep them all year. This tells me that while my new method of resolution-making may not be as satisfying as doing all the things AND IMMEDIATELY, it’s much more effective. Which leads me, dear readers, to my Resolutions For The Last Year of The World:
FREE TO BE YOU AND ME.
Okay, it’s more a Resolution than Resolutions. And I guess it’s more of a Concept than a Resolution. And, well, maybe more of a show featuring Marlo Thomas and Friends than a Concept. Nonetheless, that’s what I want to work on this year: learning to enjoy and appreciate my life for what my life is, concentrating on what I have rather than what I lack, what I can do rather than what I can’t control, where I am whether than where I could be — or, perhaps more importantly, where I have been — and learning to love it all.
At this point, you might be thinking, Thanks a lot for getting all New Age Crazy on us, Emma. God. And at this point, I might just agree, if I didn’t know I was about to write about actual steps to feeling Free To Be You And Me. It’s not just all New Age Crazy up in here — I have some actual plans, people, and the first one is: far less Facebook.
I know, I know. I’ll give you all a moment to take a breath. But I mean it: here, at my parents’ house, the Internet is spotty and therefore so has been my Facebook use — and lo, that has made all the difference. Or, at least, a lot of difference, and I will be honest about why. Sometimes, I log into Facebook and it seems as though every single person on my friend list is getting married in a lavish and loving ceremony then moving into an opulent and immaculately decorated home, which they immediately populate with 3.5 precious children and an immaculately groomed, precious dog, all while publishing a seemingly infinite number of award-winning books and zooming their way to the top of the academic world. And then I’m in the kitchen corner with my hands covered in mascara, eating Nutella straight from the jar and listening to “I Dreamed a Dream” on repeat.
But I digress. The thing is, right before I logged into Facebook, I was dancing with my cat to MIA in celebration of finishing a draft of an essay and generally feeling very good about my life, as imperfect as it may be. The other thing is that my friends list isn’t populated by people with perfect lives, either — Facebook is just built to make it seem that way, and, as I have a jealous streak so strong that the Wicked Witch of the West would tell me my complexion’s a little too green, I respond to Facebook that way. I need to work on that, and work on appreciating what I have more — and since Facebook triggers both jealousy and an extreme feeling of failure, I’d best spend a little less time with it.
And with the time I’ll save? I’m planning to act like it’s The End of the World as We Know It, Mayan calendar or no Mayan calendar. There are a lot of things that I want to do, and I’ve spent too much time not doing them, saying I’ll do them later. And so 2012 is, for me, The Year of Projects. I’m planning to continue the 365 Project, taking a photo a day this year. And reading like crazy, too. I’m about to sign up for The Grind — writing a page or poem or such a day — to set the tone for the rest of the year. I’m also going to try to fit in two other loves I’ve ignored, following the Who The Eff Cares? philosophy I mentioned in this post: art and — wait for it — music. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument, and I’ve got at least six months of recovery ahead of me — what better time to try to learn how to play the guitar?
I guess, more than anything, it’s time for me to realize that the land where the river runs free, through the green country to a shining sea, is this one, if I want it to be — and it’s time for this girl to grow to be her own woman.