"I'M REBORN IN EVERY MOMENT, SO WHO KNOWS WHAT I'LL BECOME." -SELENA GOMEZ

It is hard for me to imagine being more mentally healthy than I am in this moment. But, as I look back over the last year, I thought that same thing many times, only to surprise myself when I would grow a little bit more. I am ending this year successfully and feeling quite proud of myself for how far I've come. By that I don't mean that I got a promotion or bought a new fancy car. I don't mean that I have a new beautiful house or a gorgeous new man. I am simply proud of the success I've had within myself. That I have learned how to ACTUALLY live presently. How I have learned to acknowledge what I'm feeling and act accordingly. How I've learned to prioritize and recognize what I need in my life and let go of the things that aren't important or can wait. And how I have not allowed toxic people to impede my vibe.

Right after I left my husband, last October 2017, I got right back into the gym. I lost about 25 pounds and I was feeling great. Correction: I was happy that my family didn't look at me with disgust anymore. I wasn't feeling great. In fact, I hated working out at the time and I just didn't feel like it was getting me anywhere. After thinking long and hard about it, I quit working out. I had decided that I wasn't going to do anything that didn't make me happy anymore. I recognize that, as adults, we have to do things sometimes that don't make us happy. But, I decided to give myself a break and focus on things more important to me. 

I have this nasty habit after a break-up, of losing all the weight I gained in my last unhappy relationship and walking right into my new relationship skinny but still so unhappy. I started to realize that I had not been single since I was 15. And that I was always so worried about how I looked on the outside, but never really tried to feel good on the inside. I realized that I had never actually healed from any break-up I had ever been through. We are told all our lives to "suck it up" and "move on" and that mentality had just stuck with me. So I just trucked on from boy to boy never really thinking about how each relationship would affect my next and how, long term, it would affect me. 

I see now what artificial happiness can do to us. Slapping a smile on your face and moving forward, whether you're ready or not. In our society, and especially as women, we are not allowed to just stop. Take a break. Breathe. I felt like I had to constantly be challenging myself with something. Marriage, grad school, career, kids... But what about the challenges that we face that can't be seen? What about working on ourselves? Learning to love ourselves? Figuring out what we want and setting up our lives to aim for that desire? Why are these challenges not recognized as necessary or praised as the others? 

The answer is simple. This world is judged based on how hard you work. And in my experience over the last year, when you're truly taking the time and working on yourself, it doesn't really look like you're doing anything. In order to become successful at loving myself, I had to eliminate a lot of people from my life, leaving me pretty isolated -- which to society is weird. I had to step back from my career that was taking up too much time and emotional energy -- which to society looked lazy. I had to get rid of excess, material things that were unnecessary to my goals -- which to society looks crazy. 

To the outside world, I looked as though I was doing nothing. But if you could read my thoughts you would hear conversations like this: "I am feeling sad right now. What is making me feel sad? I should allow myself to cry, if I need to. Take a moment and feel this sadness and recognize, to the core, where it's coming from. Only then can I solve the problem and move forward." With every emotion I was feeling, I would allow myself to reflect on how it was affecting me. Positively or negatively. And I would talk myself through how to use that energy for good or I would recognize what I needed to do in order to feel better and truly be able to move on. 

During this time, I still went to work. I still hung out with friends. I still paid my bills. I wasn't making as much money as I did when I was working in my career, but I was okay. I learned that money isn't everything and while I am not naive to believe that I do not need money. I quit allowing money to run my life. I quit letting time run my life. I quit giving myself huge deadlines and unnecessary or unattainable goals. I just allowed myself to stop worrying about anything. I realized what my priorities were. Losing weight was at the end of my list of priorities. Dating was at the end of that list. I just wanted to learn how to love myself and I had to be okay with what that might look like to other people. 

While looking back on the last year and everything I've accomplished and how much better I feel, it makes me think a lot about resolutions for the New Year. What am I going to accomplish this year? And while I am hard wired to say things like lose weight, make more money, apply to a Ph.D. program... I am still so obsessed with the idea of working on the things that no one can see. The biggest problem I have had this year is truly being okay with being lonely. I allow myself to sit in every emotion. Happiness, sadness, anxiety, anger.. but when it comes to lonely, I have yet to break the habit of grabbing my phone, which usually leads to meaningless sex and boy drama that I actually want no part of. 

As I was talking to my roommates the other night, I kept saying that I really did not want to be in a relationship. Because internally, truly, in my soul, I don't. But my roommate kept saying, yes you do! You totally do! What this made me realize, after some soul searching, is that my actions are not aligning with my desires. It's the same thing as, we teach people how we want to be treated. I was showing people that I wanted to be in a relationship by the actions that I was taking because I still have an impossible time with being okay with being alone. So I talk to guys, I hang out with guys, I have sex with guys, showing people that I am obsessed with needing a man. When, in fact, it's quite the opposite. 

So, this got me thinking about my New Year's resolutions. I kept thinking about how the one thing I want, is to learn how to live in loneliness and not cave to the feeling that I need to be held. I thought about my resolution being no sex in 2019. I thought about my resolution being no dating in 2019. And on and on until I just felt like I was restricting myself in the most ridiculous way. Then, this morning, I woke up and I had it. I knew what my resolution was. And with it, it would in turn, more than likely, deter me from dating and sex, just the same, without putting some impossible and unnecessary restriction on myself. 

In 2019, I will respect myself. 

That's it. It covers everything. It covers dating men that are no good for me. It covers not allowing myself to have meaningless sex that makes me feel good for 1 hour. It covers respecting my body, how I treat it, and what I put in it. It covers how I do my job. It covers how I reach my goals and desires in life... Because what I've realized is that if you respect yourself fully, then all the other things just fall into place. If I don't date a man who isn't good for me, then I will likely only date men who are. If I don't have meaningless sex with someone because I'm lonely, then I will likely learn that loneliness is like every other emotion and it will pass. If I don't eat junk food, then I will likely feel healthier and better about my body. And all of these things add up to simply RESPECTING MYSELF. 

Here's to 2019 -- the year of me. 

"And if I asked you to name all the things that you love, how long would it take for you to name yourself?" -Anonymous