Every year my New Year's resolutions look about the same. But they start to vary about every five-ish years.
In elementary school I am pretty sure the only resolutions I had were to convince my parents to get a dog and take up horseback riding.
In middle school I started to realize I looked more like those thick crayons for toddlers than a normal skinny crayon when a couple of classmates called me chubby.
And so it began.
My resolution was to lose some pounds and practice this obscure thing called exercising. As you can guess, it went really well. Just kidding, no, no it did not. The limit did not exist on how many ice cream cones you could get in the cafeteria, so what was I expected to do? Not eat two everyday? That's nonsense and a little wasteful.
In high school I was told that along with my physique, my grades were not going to get me any where either. These were the big things that mattered; that was clear. My resolution list might as well have just said "just be better."
By the time my first year of college came around, the pressure from the previous lists still haunted me. I still needed to be a size 2 and have a 4.0 GPA, so they made the list yet again.
It's three years later and after taking a look at past resolutions, I figured it's time to put my resolutions to rest. I'm locking them in a dungeon and throwing the key away.
Resolutions tell me that if I don't complete them, I'm a failure.
And I am not.
I am a work-in-progress.
I planned resolutions according to what I thought I needed to be and what I thought other people thought I needed to be. It's taken me 21 years to realize that being a size 2 and having a 4.0 GPA are just two things I don't actually care about. I care about my health and my achievements in school, but I look at them differently now.
My health is for me and for absolutely no one else. It is mine. I won't deny that I compare myself to the Instagrams, the magazine covers, and the Kardashians every now and then, but like I said, I'm a work-in-progress.
My grades don't equate to a 4.0 GPA. I've certainly struggled to figure out how to study, what I like to study, and what my education means to me. And that is all okay. A 4.0 GPA is just not in my stars, but what I've learned through my attempts to get there is priceless.
I've failed to meet my resolutions in the years designated to them, and I wonder who I'd be now if I had. I honestly don't even know what resolutions I would have for 2016. Every year I am a little different than the previous year, so who knows if the resolutions I were to create now would benefit the Margaret of 2017?
