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I’ve never had a New Year’s resolution before. Well… I think I had one once in high school, and I think it was to not have a resolution. They just seemed silly to me, like a list of promises that you pretty much just jinxed yourself into not keeping. For the most part, they still do.

I’ve got a couple this year… two, actually. They’re not silly promises I don’t really want to keep (like “I resolve to suddenly become a vegetarian”) or couldn’t keep no matter how hard I tried (like “I resolve to blog once a day, every day for a year” or “I resolve to keep my room shiny clean until 2009″). No, these are actually… attainable.

The first one, I can’t share. It’s a wee bit embarrassing, actually, and pretty personal. I’ll gladly leave you in the dark on that one.

The second one is one that I should have made… well, ages ago. This is the one I really want to check up on in a year, to make sure I’ve done what I said to do. I want to get my life moving again.

I’m almost twenty-one. I need to get up, get moving, and start living. Carpe diem and all of that. I need to get my license. I need a car. I’d love to go back to school. I’d love to get out and just do things, be someone besides an extension of what I used to be. I’ve got an entire year… and an entire lifetime. I don’t want to just be taking up space anymore. I want to do whatever it is that I’ve been put here to do… and do it wholeheartedly. Whatever that means — whatever it takes.

Every year on Thanksgiving, my family has a time-honored tradition. Before we start eating, and after we say a prayer, we go around the table and everyone has to say one thing they’re thankful for. It can be anything… from family to a new job to the Care Bear they received earlier that day (that would be the seven year old).

Also, since becoming “Messianic,” we’ve tended to eat our big meal on Friday, sort of as a combination Shabbat/Thanksgiving feast. So here I am, dinner in a few hours, and I’m trying to think of the one thing I’m thankful for.

It’s not that I have nothing to be thankful for. I’ve got my family, my friends, my job, a roof over my head, an internet connection, food, and water (yes, in order of priorities!). Nobody close to me has died lately, there’s been no major disasters, and I’m still in one piece. But I feel like that’s what I say every year. My family. My friends.

If I was to be honest, I really would probably say my friends this year. There’s been a few of you that have really been helping me keep my head above water this past year. Listening and letting me vent. Understanding my situation. Coming to me with your problems (which actually really blesses me). Letting me just kick back and have a good time without the fear of being judged. There’s about three of you I know I wouldn’t be able to live without, and I’m so thankful for you.

Also, I’d say my family. I know I haven’t been the greatest daughter. I know I’ve been an outright pain. I know you wish I would have turned out differently. But you know what? I know you’re always going to be there to support me, no matter what.

See? I’d say family and friends. Cliché, but true.

I’ve been getting this message from a million different directions recently… that life is too short for all the crap we’ve got going on. One of my closest friends could have died very recently in a car accident, and everything she’s been saying since has confirmed this. One little thing in your life could go slightly differently, and boom… you could be gone. Life is too short for all of the things we are and are not doing.

I feel like I need to make a lot of changes in my own life. A lot of changes. I feel resolute; I feel like this whole thing is so fleeting and I’m wasting my time with inactivity. I need to get up and go. I’ve come up with a list of New Year’s Resolutions. Now, before you tell me that it’s not the new year just yet… I’m thinking more along the lines of “I want to check back on myself around New Year’s, and I want to see if I’ve actually done what I set out to do.”

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