I was never very good at saying goodbye.

I never really understood the obsession with the new year. Although, when I was drinking, the first week of the new year and the first week of lent were my favorite because everyone seemed to stay away from the bars these weeks, leaving me alone with my juke box full of Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash, to sit in silence and drown my own sorrows. It may have been my few many attempts and failures at new year's resolutions that helped me to conclude you can start anew each and every day. You can start that day over at any point, so why not the year. I still scoff a bit thinking about my lofty goals of cutting back on the offensive language in public, or possibly uncrossing my arms long enough to humor the idea of embracing a new acquaintance with a hug; these tasks seem monumental to me to undertake for an entire year let alone one day, so I would brush off the idea of a resolution entirely. And then I read in one of my favorite texts there are differences between resolutions and decisions. Unluckily for me they don't tell you what they are, but in my little experience having done both, I had resolutely attempted to turn my life around dozens of times. If I could only change my behavior enough to make braving the new day tolerable I could possibly stay alive another day... and each time I would "fail". Then came along the decisions. I put the cigarette out... and no matter how hard it is.. continually make the decision to not pick another one up. Fuck that's hard... and there goes the offensive language.
I still hold that all of the major changes in my life have never happened on a January 1 of any year. The day I got sober, quit smoking, opened my business, started teaching yoga, the list goes on. It wasn't until having this very conversation with my beloved that the idea that the completion of those tasks was never the ultimate goal, but the journey that changes us. I had told myself I wasn't going to smoke cigarettes anymore for ... well... since I started smoking.. and it took 10 years to quit. But I truly believe I couldn't have quit, and have stayed quit (1 year + now) without all of the attempts. I'd been suffering long before I quit putting harsh chemicals in my body, years in fact, and each attempt to quit was another step closer. This is paralleled in all of the other wonderful things that have happened over the years. Having had this experience I still am unclear why a new year is so powerful for some people, and on some level I understand completely. It's the chance to start anew with an entire year long calender to back you up.  And even if half of us don't make it past the first week or month even, it was the attempt to make the change that changes us internally. It may change us fundamentally or reinforce for us that we have potty mouths and we just don't give a fuck what other people think about it.
So in an effort to embrace the world around, to try it before I knock it, to start the clock over, I will make resolutions. And, I will be kind to myself if I "fail", because even if I don't make it through the entire year, I made the attempt.. and took the first step.
Blessings and Love to you all in the new year.
-Annie

Because writing always makes me feel better....

Honestly, it's been a rough few weeks. I do love all of my jobs for very different reasons (I bartend/serve, teach yoga, and own my own soap business). Owning my own business shoves reality in my face on a daily basis, especially the reality that business don't grow themselves. There is work involved, a lot of work. Being a self proclaimed introvert, selling items has never been my strong suit. I have a hard enough time answering the phone when I don't know who it is let alone selling my items to people I know and don't. It still very much feels like the lemonade stand my sister and I constructed when we were kids, although I have to admit, I think I felt more confident then. In order to even move slightly forward I feel I have to muster up the courage to even get the words out "hey, I make these things... they're pretty good.. I sell them.. you know... if you're interested...". And that 7 year old girl who is toeing the sand in front of her, looking down, waiting to be picked for a recess soccer team, never knowing how to approach people and what to say, comes back and I gasp and face my inherent fear of people and what they may think of me.
Tending bar and serving tables has been my profession for the last 13 years. While I admit I am a long way from the 15 year old Milk Shake Girl working at Swensen's I still constantly face an uncomfortable truth that I am horrible at starting conversations. Most of my bartending conversations go like this "HEY! How are you doing today!?" - Me "Great! You!?" - Them "Great, thanks!" - Me... and then it ends..... and I'm lost.. and I back away slowly looking to awkwardly start and walk away from another conversation. When I was drinking I loved the bars that had no one in them, I liked the bartenders who kept the beer coming and never asked me how my day was. I didn't want to be friends with the bartenders (I think because I suspected no one could be friends with me), I wanted to drown in my pitchers of whatever was the cheapest beer with a Johnny Walker Black back and drink myself into oblivion. I didn't start conversations with my bartenders and for years approached my job this way... I thought my job was to do my job but part of bar tending is creating conversation. Only recently did I learn that I have to create relationships. Before I get myself into too much trouble, it is a social interaction I have never really understood but it continues to push my out of my comfort zone and learn how to talk to other people. It only gets slightly easier each time.
Which brings me to teaching yoga. I love this job. I have never thought I was capable of doing anything other than waiting tables and tending bar. Given the opportunity to work in a space that is filled with years of love and light, the energy fills me with confidence every time I walk into the space. I am learning to take the seat of the teacher (which is difficult for he 7 year old shy girl, 16 year old Sundae maker, and even the 29 year old almost woman who has only recently felt comfortable in her skin). When I step into the classroom I am humbled that anyone anywhere would be willing to walk into a class that I am teaching, by the end of the class I'm reminded of how far I've come and how far I still have yet to go, and I LOVE IT. It is such a comfortable feeling to know I am right in the middle, right where I need to be, and know that everything I need to be the best version of myself is already in side of me and already has been.
I've felt for a while now that I've been in a weird limbo between wanting to move away from an old life and enter into a new one. The tightrope is wavering, unsteady, and the drop is long. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I am much stronger than I thought, maybe the lemonade state was the precursor to the business, maybe learning to ask how someone's day is, is the skill I need to learn to make me a better teacher.
I'm really not even sure why I'm writing this, hopefully someone somewhere reads this and feels the same, or has been through the same things and can offer some experience? Not sure.. maybe it's just to give credit to those young girls (whom I still pray for sometime) and honor their journey.
I'm also not good at ending blogs... or conversations... so I'm going to slowly back away and awkwardly start another conversation somewhere else...