…if you look too closely, will you drown?

Each year I say I’m not going to set any resolutions for myself because I don’t particularly care for failure and I may be the least disciplined person on the planet.  I may have a routine for certain aspects of my life but that’s about it.  My mind changes far too rapidly and I have piles of things dedicated to causes or hobbies that I lost interest in within a span of five minutes or five days.  For the past week or so, I was wondering if I should challenge myself and establish a few things that I’d like to see myself achieve or conquer in the coming year.  The mind remains a jumble.  Please don’t state the obvious:  better structuring of the thoughts because, really, I have been seeing a therapist for fourteen years now and I’m comfortable with the fact that my brain remains a tangled mess of words, thoughts and images.  Furthermore, I fear what would happen if the noise abates.  How could I honestly respond “busy busy busy” when asked some random question by any random person if the clamoring ceased?  And, no, I’m not a Bokononist.  I simply think “busy busy busy” is the most suitably succinct answer to certain questions.

If I decided to challenge myself and set some goals (which I have masterfully avoided doing since the age of sixteen), what would I set for myself?  Would I go with the clichéd but valid lose x amount of weight?  Would I resolve to become more physically active?  Would I resolve to stop putting every single person in my life in front of me which consistently results in a husk of Kang tatters on the floor (not a humble-brag, ‘tis fact)?  Do I eye another rung on the career ladder and decide to climb it?

I have no fucking idea.

And thus therein lies the problem that’s always been.  I have skated through life with no goals.  Financial goals:  none comparable to what I have seen from my friends.  Career goals:  I was in management before the age of 30.  Decided management was not suitable for my temperament on many levels and have avoided it ever since.  Personal goals:  finally, after many years of soul-crushing failure, managed to have a kid.  But none of these were actual goals.  There was no master list I kept where I ticked off my achievements and added additional items to make myself a better person.  I’m just one of those people who gets up, gets out of bed, goes along with what the day has in store and deals with it.  Some days, I manage better than others.  Other days, getting out of bed is enough to merit a gold star.  Basically, I’m like every other fucking person on the planet.  No special snowflake or stardust, here.

What compels us to sit down on the 31^st of December and engage in this silly exercise, anyway?  Is it basically peer pressure?  Do we see others sitting around, trying to improve themselves and think “Hmmmm.  Maybe I should get on this bus?”  Where and when was it drilled into our heads that at a specific date and time, we’re supposed to modify all the negative behaviors?  Because, if this is supposed to be a thing, am I not doing that on a weekly, if not daily basis, via self-improvement and general avoidance of being a raging asshole towards the entire world?

If someone barged into my office right now, held a gun to my head and forced me to pick something, I suppose I would opt for:  get back in touch with the writer within.  For two miserable years, I stumbled around with everything bottled up inside presuming that no one gave a single fuck about what was on my mind.  For some misguided reason, I thought my voice had to have a specific audience or someone had to be remotely interested in what I had to say or what I was trying to say (the more important of the two).  Turns out – staying quiet out of fatigue and ambivalence is a pretty stupid way to go through life.  Especially if you’re someone who isn’t quiet by nature.  So, maybe writing more would be something I would resolve to do in 2015.  I cannot say that for certain because the Kang Muffler still looms large and is still very much present.

The only other thing that springs to mind is a passionate resolve to return to Sweden in 2015.  Come January, it’s been seven years since I have been on Swedish soil.  Seven years since I have left American soil.  For a natural wanderer, this is just insane behavior.  Granted, life has changed significantly in that time span but there are relationships that need attention and attention I have not given them.  Not to mention the huge chunk of my soul that has gone un-nurtured for far too long.

Or, maybe, the only resolution I need to make is to get back to being a better version of myself.  The me that includes all I was before Kate died and took a large part of me with her to the grave (as others have observed and told me).  The me that includes the part that had to be put on the shelf because I was no longer just Kang, I became Kang+Milkface which I wouldn’t trade for anything.  There will never come a day when I won’t “think too much” and I remain committed to not surrendering that part of me, no matter how frustrating others may find that trait.  It feels like the only things I can answer are the phone and the door.

So, if I was to actually make a list of goals for 2015, I suppose I would:

• Write more
• Visit Sweden (and actually return to the US, solely because I highly doubt we can find a functional equivalent of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns for Milky anywhere else)
• Get back in touch with my bad self
• Not chastise myself in December of 2015 for failing to do any of the above

Oh…and one other thing – stop apologizing for who I am.  I’m really quite over that.

UPDATE:  Courtesy of the Resolution Generator that’s floating around Facebook.  I’m not exactly sure what to think of this one.