Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Here we are again, staring at a new year as it approaches over the horizon with the morning sun. This is the moment where we breathe because we made it, we are alive. People are partying and laughing and celebrating by yearly midnight kisses. Or, maybe they're eating pizza and watching old or new shows on Netflix, contemplating all the ways 2016 went wrong and all the ways they pray 2017 will go right.

But what are resolutions? We all make them and, if you're like me, we don't keep them. I always say, "I'm going to lose weight" or "this year is going to be my year and I'm going to chase my dreams." Then, once again, I don't lose the weight or chase any dreams. I just spend most of my time fighting to get by, to feel alive like I did on midnight.

So, this year I'm making promises to myself that aren't necessarily resolutions and I think you should too. This year has to be different than the years before because this year I turn twenty. I turn twenty and I need to know who I am and maybe you're turning thirty and need a different plan for your life or maybe you're eighteen and just starting out on your journey. But, if 2016 has done anything, it has taught me that my plans weren't right and I have to do more in this life and just survive.

This year, I promise to explore the world that lies around me.

I want to get in touch with nature and the world around me. I want to hike on trails and chase waterfalls and find solace in the still quiet that God has given me in the beauty of the world around me. And, I want to watch the sun set somewhere nice and I want to find myself in a park as I watch the stars come out at night. I want to know the secrets that the world holds in the flowers and the trees. Maybe out there I can find me.

This year, I promise to find new music and fall in love with the artists I already know.

I will book that ticket to that concert and I will scream the songs at the top of my lungs in a crowded room with everyone around me and I will feel free. I will listen to the words come through the loud speakers and I will feel the bass run through my feet and I will know that I am not alone. I will open my mind to music I've never known and I will revisit the songs that kept me alive through the rough years and I will say my thanks at every show.

This year, I promise to travel somewhere new, even if it isn't that far away.

For the longest time, there has been this wanderlust that has eaten away at my soul. There are so many places I want to go with art and history that I long to see or to just sit and look at until I can fully understand it. I want to see museums and zoos and art galleries and I want to eat food out of a street cart. I want to find new cultures and experience them in person. I want to travel and find myself somewhere out there.

This year, I promise to read more books.

I've found that you can lose yourself in a different world where words come off the page and play out a story before your eyes. There is so much poetry I have yet to read and there are so many stories that have been told that I am dying to see. There are books out that are anniversary editions with different endings and my heart craves the answer. I have neglected myself by not letting my mind explore these things. This year will be different.

This year, I will write something great.

I am unsure of the words that I will write or how the story will turn out but my typewriter will feel everything I feel as it hums along to the words going down upon each page. There is a story in 2017 that is dying to be told and I refuse to let anyone else tell it.

This year, I will find me.

I'm not sure how or when or even where. But, I lost myself in 2016. I lost who I was and where I wanted to go and what I wanted to be but I know that I am going into 2017 with no expectations or blurred lines of reality. All I know is that I am here. I am alive. And I'm going to figure it out, one day at a time.

So, this year make promises but not resolutions. Finish that book. Go see an old friend. Start that book you always meant to write. Just be kind. Do something nice for a stranger you meet. Give someone a smile when you pass them on the street. Move out of that house. Take life into your own hands.

This is your life. 2017 can be your year. This year can be anything you want it to be. You don't have to have everything figured out. The most important thing right now is that you're here. So take it in. Breathe and realize you made it through another year and 2018 is 363 days away but it will be calling your name.

I hope I'll see you there.

Goodbye, 2016.

Be good to the world, 2017. We're counting on you.