It’s that time of year again. We’re all making lists of things we want to accomplish this year. Resolutions and goals that will determine whether our year was “successful” or not. I used to be the kind of person who put so much value into the resolutions I created. Each one was specifically designed to morph me into a version of myself that I would finally deem worthy. 

I think I was about 15 when I established my first serious resolution. Something that I was going to actually commit to and get done. My first resolution revolved around my weight…shocker. I was going to lose 10 pounds and finally be “thin.” I simultaneously laugh and cry when I look at pictures of 15-year-old Caroline because I was definitely not fat. At all. I had just been wholeheartedly convinced that I wasn’t beautiful, and something about myself needed to change. Without going into too much detail, I will just say this: that one little resolution is what ignited a 10 year battle of disordered eating. 

I’ve always wondered why we as human beings are so obsessed with changing ourselves. We are never satisfied, always thirsty for what our lives would look like if we weren’t the version of ourselves we currently are. There are certainly times when change is good (and necessary). Times when it can be empowering. But when it becomes what determines whether you are worthy of being alive? That’s when change becomes a prison. I fear that many of us have allowed our resolutions to become the barriers that keep us from becoming the versions of ourselves we’ve always wanted to be. The versions we already are. Instead of being something fun to work towards and look forward to, resolutions have become assignments that, if not completed, will be met with the worst form of punishment: our own self-hatred. 

This is the first year since I was 15 where I haven’t made any resolutions around my weight or body. Well, I do have one, but it’s positive in my opinion. I’ve decided I’m no longer going to weigh myself. Would you believe me if I told you I have weighed myself every morning for the last 10 years of my life? I hate to say it’s true but it is. Every morning, when I wake up, the first thing I do is step on the scale. It’s a bit pathetic to think that I still haven’t been able to let that habit go after the amount of treatment and therapy I’ve had. The worst part is that it has never made me feel good. Even last week, when I stepped on the scale, I wasn’t happy with the number that appeared. I still heard that little voice in the back of my head telling me that I’m not skinny enough. That I need to lose more weight if I want to be attractive. 

People used to tell me that, unlike alcoholism, eating disorders are something you can eventually overcome. Something that will one day disappear from your life completely. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be someone who is not thinking about what my body looks like or what I am eating. Am I better than I used to be? Absolutely! Am I a normal person who can go get a blizzard from Dairy Queen and not think twice about it? Not quite. That’s okay though, and I have honestly made my peace with it. I’m the healthiest I have been in a long time, and there is something to be said about that. My mom always tells me to focus on the “baby steps” and I think the whole not-weighing-myself-anymore  thing can be considered a baby step. I’m sure I’ll wind up pulling the scale back out again at some point, but if I can even cut it down to half of what it used to be I will consider my resolution fulfilled. 

This year, instead of creating resolutions that change the person I am, I decided to come up with resolutions that take me back to the version of myself I was before my life became plagued by an obsession with food. I made an entire list of fun things to start doing again! Here’s a few: 

• Take piano back up (I quit when I was in middle school) 
• Start drafting a novel even if its completely horrible
• Binge watch at least 4 TV shows
• Start going to the movies again 
• Use an actual camera for pictures instead of my phone (sometimes a phone will have to do for convenience, but you get the idea) 

None of these are serious. None of them revolve around going to the gym or only eating things that are green. None of them are meant to change anything about myself. All I want my resolutions to do are remind me that life does not have to be so serious. That I am already everything and more I have ever needed to be. 

It wasn’t until this past summer that I realized how exhausted I was. How entirely burnt out I had become on trying to be a version of myself I was never supposed to be. I had been molding a conventional life for myself because that is what I had trained myself to believe was necessary. But lately I’ve learned that I don’t think I want my life to look like the majority of people around me. Not because I need to be “different” or because I think their lives aren’t good, but because it’s simply not me. I don’t want to work the same job for 30 plus years, and I don’t want to own a house anytime soon. I don’t feel the need to be married with a kid by the time I’m 30, and I don’t like the idea of living in one place for years on end…at least not right now. That’s not to say that any of these things are bad—quite the opposite actually. I think each of the things I just listed have value and are wonderful parts to many peoples’ lives. I just don’t think they are meant to be pillars I build my own life around. Some of you may feel this way too, so if that is the case just know you’re not alone. 

I don’t know what the next 10 years of my life will look like, and I’ve really grown to love it. That feeling of not knowing.  I do know that I have some things slowly beginning to form that might just be part of the greatest adventure I ever go on. Some things that almost feel too good to be true. They terrify me and excite me at the same time, and I think that just makes me all the more ready to venture on. To step into the unknown and just trust that I will end up where I am supposed to. To stop thinking about all of the ways it could go wrong and start believing that it will in fact go the way I hope.  I think more of us need to do that. To stop all the planning and just go with it. 

Everyone has their own goal or resolution they are working towards this year. My hope is more people would realize that, more often than not, the “best” versions of ourselves are the ones that existed before we even started to change them. The humans we were as children before society started telling us that we needed to be different so people would like us. I often wish I could take 10-year-old Caroline—who loved to dance and write stories—into my arms and tell her how absolutely great she was. That she didn’t need to be more “pretty” or “popular” to be enough. She was already enough. Just as she was. 

So, if you have made a series of resolutions for yourself this year, maybe stop to ask if it’s something that is helping you find the person you used to be before you started caring how the world viewed you. Ask yourself if it makes you feel like the version you were as a child—the one who still believed in magic and happy endings. Because even though the world is full of so much heartbreak and pain (some of which many of you have experienced first hand), it’s not too late to believe that life can also be full of immense joy and love. We are all deserving of that. Don’t let your resolutions take that chance away from you.