In late 2007, my brother got married and my sister-in-law—who had just discovered how crap I was with anything to do with make-up, jewelry, and you know, looking good—bought me a bag full of amazing products and another bag full of all the jewelry a girl could need. I was headed to Africa at the time, so I packed up these supplies, threw them into my luggage, and proceeded to never use them during my time there.
When I moved to Berkeley, in the US, I didn’t want to be the only unfashionable person in the town, so I vowed to wear the jewelry that my sister-in-law had so lovingly given to me and threw out a couple of books (the horror!) to make space for it. But then I got there, shoved it all in a cupboard and proceeded to forget about it.
When I got married, I was determined to be the wife who wore make-up when we went out and did fun and cool-looking things with her hair. Never happened.
And this year again, when we moved to London, I thought, hey, my kid is older, I’m looking frumpier, perhaps I should consider how I look a bit more.
But following that pattern of the last seven years (and it’s still the same make-up and same jewelry), I proceeded to put it in a box and forget about it until it was time to move again (last month, which is why I’m thinking about this).
No matter how many times I carry that bag with me and how many good intentions I have about it, I never get around to using it because it doesn’t gel with who I truly am as a person—someone who spends five minutes in front of the mirror every morning getting dressed. I’ve had pretty much the same hairstyle for a decade because it’s low maintenance and it’s just not in my nature to spend that much time worrying about my appearance. So on the days that I happen to look good, it actually is effortless. That’s who I am. I own three pairs of jeans, tons of t-shirts, but not a single flowery skirt or a decent dinner jacket. (I’m not saying this is good necessarily, but I am saying this is who I am.)
And that brings me to my point: Sometimes, we fail to acknowledge who we are as people (and writers) and this can take a toll on us in ways that we don’t even know. In aspiring to be someone I’m not (someone who looks glamorous and put together), I forget to remember that I’m pretty cool in who I actually am—someone who takes less time than her husband to get out the door and looks great in skinny jeans.
This is an important lesson to remember today, the first day of the year, when we’re all flush with energy and excitement about how awesome we’re going to be in 2015 and all the amazing things we’re going to achieve. We read other people’s goals and internalize that ours should be just like theirs. In years past, I’ve convinced myself that I would become a marathon runner (even though I’ve never even run a 5k), that I’d be a published novelist (even though I’d never finished a novel), or that I’d write 5,000 words a day (even though my daily average is, at the best of times, 2k).
It is important to consider who you are when you write down those goals, think about those resolutions, or pick your theme for the year. Because if you don’t, you carry a burden with you from place to place that is totally the wrong fit for you, that holds you back, that makes you aspire to something you don’t even care for and lose sight of the real things you want for your life and your career.
Maybe you don’t want to write a best-selling novel. That’s okay. Maybe you want to write romance and not literary fiction. That’s okay. Maybe you want to write self-help. That’s okay, too.
Acknowledge what is right for you because chasing the wrong goal is sometimes even more damaging than not chasing anything at all because at the end of it, you’re burned out and feeling crap about yourself.
I’m throwing out the make-up bag (it is seven years old, after all) and giving away the jewelry. These things don’t fit into my idea of who I am or want to be. In my writing, too, I’m letting go of a few ideas, of the need to conform, to fit into the idea of what a successful writer or author needs to be. I experimented with self-publishing in 2014 and I intend to embrace it fully for my nonfiction (and perhaps even my fiction) in 2015.
It’s not going to happen overnight. I may carry some burdens over. It may take seven years, in fact, to fully release them. But I’m learning who I am and slowly taking my life in the direction of where I want to be.
Are you?
Happy 2015, everyone! Let’s make this the year we get closer to those dreams.