Regarding the current holiday, please note that when the clock strikes twelve, it is “Happy New Year” not “Happy New Years”. I want to slit the throats of all the people who can’t figure out that I can’t have more than one happy year at a time. It is New Year’s Eve because it is the “eve” belonging to the “new year”.

This is supposed to be a time for inward reflection, a time when I ponder all the ways I could improve myself, rather than just edifying you and fixing your shitty grammar. Here are some of my thoughts on my own self-improvement:

I can, of course, continue working to lose the extra 15lbs that plague me, while still debating about trying to conceive, and fearing that with every workout I’m harming an unborn child. I worked out in several of the pregnancies I lost. More than one person asked me if “didn’t rest enough” and “maybe that’s what caused it”. Fuck you all. While I play the sperm lottery, ensuring the lights are off so I don’t turn myself off or get paralyzed in fear that I can’t turn him on, the idea of straining my body to build muscle or burn fat is terrifying. What if I go through all this stress just to lose another baby because I wanted to be prettier? Does that make me shallow? Don’t answer that.
I can vaguely commit to having more patience and less caffeine (which is bullshit). Even if I miraculously conceive and carry longer than 16 weeks, I won’t have patience without caffeine or alcohol— which you might have heard are off limits during pregnancy.
I seriously am committing to not giving to people who don’t give back. Yes, Auld Lang Syne and shit… we’ll all take a cup of kindness. But this year, get your kindness elsewhere. If it doesn’t look or feel like reciprocity in the first 30 seconds, you can suck it. I’m not going to beg my younger siblings to visit their nephews (or me) by bribing them with free food and booze. I’m not going to extend invites to friends who were going to invite us over as soon as they got their own place, 18 months ago. If I’m not important to you, that’s fine. I’ll adjust accordingly.
I won’t live in this house at the end of 2019. I won’t have a 1,000 sq ft of broken promises and empty words existing in the physical realm as my in-law’s apartment. I won’t be reminded every time I close my curtains that the people who live next to me once promised to “uphold godly values” before they invaded my privacy, attempted to manipulate my family, disrespected my role as wife and mother, and talked shit about me to my hair stylist. I won’t be reminded of the grandparents I wish my kids had every time I drive home from the store and pass their new home—the one they couldn’t afford when they asked me to share my home with them (but only if it had an entire apartment attached, just for them). Maybe the god in their godly values is James Spader’s character in The Blacklist, or Viola Davis’ character in How to Get Away with Murder. Really, who the fuck else would walk out like that, and then rent the house next door? I bet if they read this, my father-in-law might once again tell us we’re going to make my mother in-law stroke out, and her blood will be solely on our hands. (Because obviously, her high blood pressure has nothing to do with the dependence on Stoffer’s lasagna and Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits, or the extra 70lbs she carries.) SIDENOTE: Yesterday my husband asked me if I had forgiven them. I said that sometimes I’ve forgiven them, and then I just get angry again. I think moving out will help with the “letting go” shit that I already have tattooed on my arm. (That’s not a joke. It’s really there.) It’s hard to let go when it’s the view out your bedroom window.
Finally, I resolve to have more self-discipline, and not try to soothe pain impulsively by spending money, consuming caffeine or alcohol, or engaging in some other form of hedonism to avoid pain. Maybe then I’ll stop waking up in the middle of night to face the pain I avoided all day.

So here’s to 2019, which -with any luck- will bring a skinnier, less impulsive, less generous, more grounded me.