It's January 9th now. We are nine days into resolution time and it seems to me like everyone is making life changes (even the temporary ones like those crazy juice cleanses that no one is going to keep doing or those diets we fall off of constantly). New Year's Eve and New Years Day my facebook timeline was filled with cute candid photos from the holiday season with captions like "new year, new me" or "this year I will..." In the end, how many of us actually stick to those ideas? Don't get me wrong, I am all for life changes and I think it's important to change and grow in order to live a healthy life. I just think that some of us are going about it the wrong way. When I hear the word resolution it makes me think of the word resolved as if our resolutions are the quick fix for a problem we have. For example, if we think of it like that then weight loss resolutions won't ever work. Weight loss isn't something that can be quickly fixed and then be done with. Losing weight is only half the fight. After losing the weight you have to maintain your healthy choices in order to keep it off. So resolutions can't be something you give up on. Choose to make lifetime goals rather than temporary resolutions.

Although I seem to be a naysayer of resolutions, I am not and I still make some of my own. I find that it helps me to focus on them as "goals" rather than "resolutions". I have plenty of goals for my life, long-term as well as short-term. This year has been a bit different for me, though. The past year was a wake-up call for sure. In the beginning of 2016, I was starting my last semester of high school. I had a billion things on my mind from graduation and prom to college and my future. It was going to be the best year of my life, and for the most part, it honestly was. This past year was also one of the hardest years of my life too. I was stressed to the max with AP classes my senior year on top of choosing a college and choosing a major. I lost a grandma, a great aunt, and a great grandma. I found out one of the amazing women who helped raise me has terminal cancer. I got into college and found out the stress that college can bring. I went through a break-up and a make-up. I lost almost all of my high school friends. In the past year, I have had some of the best moments, like winning my Ronald Reagan Scholarship, to some of the worst with having to see someone I love struggle with the pain of chemo and terminal cancer.

In all of this, I have completely lost myself. I have lost the happy go lucky person I once was. I have lost the wonder and enjoyment I used to get out of everything in life. Part of me thinks that maybe that's just what happens as we age, but the other part screams to never let go of that. Don't get me wrong, I am happy but I am also so hard on myself to the point that I stress myself out to the max. I worry about every little thing and overthink everything even more. I've also found that as I age I look at old pictures differently. Rather than just viewing them as old pictures of me, I see them as parts of me that used to be here but no longer are. How many of us have looked back at old pictures and thought "wow I wish I would have known this then" or "wow I wish I was still that size now"? I know that I do that all the time. I look back on the times I used to think I was "fat" and wish I was that size again. I don't see the good parts of me from those times or the growth that I have done since that moment. When I look at pictures of myself, I pick apart everything wrong with them rather than trying to see the good parts. I'm tired of living like this. So I have decided to hold onto what I once was. Rather than saying new year, new me how about I start saying new year, old me? What if I could go back and get that curiosity I had as a toddler, the wonder I had as a child or the dreams I had as a kid? So go back to those good parts of you and hold on tight to them. Stop picking yourself apart. I have decided to go back and enjoy my life the way I used to. I'm tired of being so hard on myself and hating everything bad about myself rather than seeing all the good. So rather than saying new year, new me I will say new year, old me because it's about time that happy girl came back.

I have decided to hold on to the good parts of me and appreciate them, all while working on the not so good parts of me (because we all have both good and bad parts). This year will be my year because I will make it my year. I will live life to the fullest. I won't stress myself out as much about minuscule things. I will focus more on my experiences rather than my material possessions. 2017 will be my year because I choose happiness, wonder, and dreams. So this year stay beautiful, stay you, and stay gold.