Reflecting on the year of "Why Not?"

  
                                                    
                                                    Source: thehollywoodgossip.com
I've never been big on resolutions.  Sure, I make New Year's resolutions, like every other person in the world, but I've never been great about keeping them.  Something about lifestyle change in January is hard to make a reality.

Last January, however, I decided that 2011 was the year of "Why not?"

Allow me to explain.  2010 had been a fairly crappy year for me.  Mostly, my father's illness had clouded most of it, and right as things were starting to look up, he died.  And that same week I got a UTI which subsequently turned into a kidney infection.  My life was AWESOME.  I had spent a lot of 2010 with my mother and my father, never straying far from home in case one of them needed me.  I'm glad I had that time with my family, but it was not the fun life of a twenty-six year old.  I had started to become preoccupied with the idea of getting married, and watching my friends slowly get engaged while I was inching out the last of my full strength Cipro was just a little more than I could handle.

One of the parenting blogs I read (Yes.  I read parenting blogs for fun.  No, I don't have any children.) said that Robert Pattinson was making 2011 the year of "Why not?"  And "Why not?" sounded awesome to me.  Add to the fact that 2011 was the year of my five year college reunion, and we had ourselves a plan.

Let me tell you, the year of "Why not?" was AWESOME.  it applied to every part of my life.  "Why not?" made me start living more and stop just sitting around.  "Why not?" made me do things I wouldn't normally have done.  Stay out for an extra beer?  Why not?  Dinner in midtown on a Wednesday?  Why not?  Cruise to the Bahamas?  Why not?  Snowboarding even though you'll probably just fall on your tush?  Sure, why not?

The year of "Why not?" included three vacations (including a cruise to the Bahamas on Royal Caribbean.  Their motto is "Why not?"!), three weekend trips, making new friends, reintroducing drinking back into my life, learning how to cook, my much anticipated and amazing five year college reunion, and a week of celebrating my birthday!  The year of "Why not?" made me unafraid to try new things, even if they failed.  It made me take back my life as a twenty-six year old and start doing the things I wanted to do.  The year of "Why not?" gave me the courage to remember that I was young and had every right to be happy in all aspects of my life.

2011 was awesome for me.  Not because it was all peaches and unicorns, but because it helped me remember the seventeen year old girl that I was ten years ago, and just how much she wanted from life.  It helped me to remember that I was not defined by my relationship or by my job, but by the things that I did and wanted.

Even though 2012 has its own motto, I still find myself asking, "Why not?"

And if there isn't a good reason not to, I just do it.

The Resolutions Start Tomorrow

New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday. It is a day of new beginnings, fresh starts, and leaving bad things behind (at least in theory.). New Year's Eve is a holiday with almost no obligation--you can spend it with the people you choose, not the family you were born into. There is no wrong way to celebrate, and you can do whatever you see fit. It is all about fun. Tere are no presents to buy or great aunts whose questions you need to artfully avoid. It is a young person's dream. It is a great day, and up until this year, it was also my anniversary.

January 1st, 2012 would have been our ten year anniversary. I started dating my long term boyfriend on what was technically New Year's Day in 2002. In the middle of the night, he came to my house and joined in on the party that was going on. We kissed in a chair in my parents' basement, and we were basically together since. Almost ten years, five years of long distance, two apartments, five roommates, and all the experiences of growing up together. Our story ended as quietly as we began, and we went our separate ways earlier this year.

This New Year's Eve would have been our tenth anniversary. It also should have been the weekend we were getting married. We had talked vaguely of a New Year's Eve wedding, figuring a Saturday night and our tenth anniversary would be a great time to make the whole thing official. It was just an idea, but it was the first real idea we had about our future. Even though last January it became clear that marriage was not where we were headed, our New Year's Eve wedding still existed in my mind. As someone who has dreamed of getting married for years, it was sad to see it pass.

Even though it is sad to watch a potential wedding date come and go, as we passed through yesterday and today, I found that I was almost happy. I am really glad we aren't getting married. We weren't right and we weren't happy, and rather than doing what was expected of us and taking the next step, we chose to go our separate ways. Of course it is sad that my relationship ended, but going through a divorce would have been far worse.

I am sad, but also happy. Happy to know that there is a lot more out there. Happy because I hope each of us finds happiness elsewhere. Happy because even though I know I have "never been wed", I know that day is still ahead of me. I can go back to loving weddings for weddings' sake and there not being stakes or implications behind a color pattern or a motif.

I should have been leaving on my honeymoon tomorrow. Instead, I will be walking my college friend to the train and going to trivia. And honestly, I think that's great.