(Note: you have to sing the title like the lyric in Burn.)

So, it’s practically the 365 day of 2006. Which means it’s over.

Yay.

I can’t complain; 2006 saw many firsts for me. I moved out on my own into a condo and have successfully lived alone for just over six months now. I went to Alaska for the first time (on a cruise, which was also a first) (also got snogged in the elevator by one of the bellhops who apparently had a crush on me (unbeknownst to me) made another first) and saw icebergs and glaciers and eagles flying freely over my head. I had what was my first (and better be the last!) arm-related surgery.

There’s probably more but that’s all that’s coming to mind right now.

On the other end of the spectrum, there was a lot of chapters closed. I moved out of the parental nest (and god, I don’t want to return) and we packed up and moved my grandmother from her house of roughly 30 years (after 8 years of trying to settle my step-grandfather’s trust) and we no longer have the “family home” to go to. That was rough. If the move hadn’t been like the seventh circle of hell I might have been a lot worse off emotionally about it.

I’ll say it. I turned 25 in 2006. I’m a quarter of century old and I thought I’d be a lot farther in life (like, career, love, health, etc) but I’m not. In a way I’m okay with that, because for all my ambitions and dreams I’ve got a lot of really bad realities (ie: emotional/mental health issues) that tend to want to snuff me out. The first part of last year was spent in a really dark depression (It started in Sept ‘05 and went through March ‘06.) and while this year’s funk is honestly not as dark (there have been moments) there have been things that have snapped me out of it and made me realize it’s not as bad as it looks.

At one point or another you participate in the timeless tradition of making resolutions for the upcoming year. There’s all the standards, the ambitions, the deal makers.

I hate resolutions. I never seem to make ones I can keep. I guess because I make ones I know aren’t truly that possible in any way.

(This from a girl who’s life’s goal since kindergarten is: Marry a rock musican.)

There’s lots I would like to accomplish in 2007. Don’t get me wrong. But I don’t see basic needs, like getting a job that’s not something temporary and actually has a future, overcoming my terror and learning to actually drive a car all by myself, keeping my weight down, and staying/eating healthy as “resolutions”. They’re things that need to be constant goals, something that you really have to accomplish and/or maintain, and shouldn’t find yourself sitting there as the clock winds down on 2007 realizing “oh, I screwed up again. oh well!”

Even the goals like “read more”, “watch less TV”, “take up a new hobby”, etc… those really aren’t resolutions. Well, maybe they are to someone, but I don’t know what the new year will bring, what I will find myself interested in.

(Hell, I took up knitting after wanting to learn for years, just because I had to kill the time when my dad was in the hosptial hovering between life and death for a month. Who knew I’d actually learn and be good at it? How would that have turned out if I’d made a resolution years before that happened and failed to accomplish it?)

I suppose I can make one resolution. I know I can easily keep this one!

My resolution for 2007: sleep.