I realize in writing this that it will be a drop in the crashing wave of other first of the year blogs and may not make it’s point as well for the deluge, but I’m doing it anyway.

I rarely make New Year’s resolutions, but I do establish goals and I think over the ones I failed to meet. I hate failing in general, but when I blow a goal because I didn’t try hard enough, or I was too lazy, or I failed to apply myself, it’s the worst. When I’ve given it all I had and failed anyway, the feeling is entirely different. There’s something to blame maybe, or at least there’s the knowledge I left it all on the field. There’s no comfort when I blew it because I could not get my backside off the bench.

There were a few goals I made for 2017 that I crushed, and a few I completely missed. In order to go into this new year without the ghost of the past, I’ve found that I need to forgive 2017 Christa. She was really stressed out. Her son was diagnosed with a scary autoimmune disorder. The cultural and political fracas that produced epic amounts of hate really got her down. She was laid off and had to find new health insurance (seriously, I can’t even describe what paralyzing stress this induced although it ended happily. Long story short, a thank you to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the ACA for keeping us healthy). And I can’t forget the kitchen remodel. Sure her dad did most of the work, but there was a lot of decision making and financial wrangling to pull that off.

So she didn’t lose much weight or make exercise a habit. And there’s no arguing she had time to blog more and didn’t. I’m not forgetting that she also had time to clean her house and organize her stuff and didn’t. She should have spent more time developing her portfolio of copy writing projects, reading comp novels and writing reviews. 2017 Christa really blew it. She really let all of us down; 2016 Christa who had such hopes and 2018 Christa who will now have to work harder.

Despite that, I’m going to forgive her. Not because of all the stress and life-changing stuff, not for any of her excuses or her very, valid reasons, but because 2018 Christa doesn’t deserve that baggage. It’s water under the bridge. No one is getting that time back. It’s gone and hating myself for missing opportunities, for wasting it, is colossally stupid and a waste of new time.

Starting new goals or restarting the old ones isn’t going to get far if I’m weighed down with last year’s failure. So, I blew it. Oh well. I’m going to turn the page on this new calendar with the intent to learn what I can from why I failed and then…let it go. As Anne Shirley said….

You may not need forgiveness. Maybe you crush every goal, climb every mountain, never disappoint yourself. Well, aren’t you special. You go ahead and keep on keeping on, the rest of us need to give our past selves a bit of grace. God has.

I will be starting 2018 off right by making peace with what was and looking forward to what’s to come.

Peace and Blessings,

Christa