In the late summer of 2024, I discovered my unwavering passion for scrapbooking. Hours upon hours of stitching together magazine clippings of architecture, letters, and art created the perfect cover for my APUSH notebook—and ignited my love for creating such collages.
After designing this masterpiece, I decided I would become a scrapbooker; I would make it into a perpetual hobby. I collected magazines and newspapers from the local library and asked for other supplies as birthday gifts.
Unfortunately, the time I might have spent on this niche interest has been spent on APUSH… and my phone.
For Christmas, I received many scrapbooking supplies, including a small black bullet journal, perfect for a combination of writing and collage. I looked back at my old 2024 bullet journal for inspiration.
It was anything but inspiring.
The New Year’s resolutions and goals in that book astounded me. How could end-of-2023 me have been so self-assured? How could I even imagine accomplishing that much? By today, I was supposed to be reading my Bible every day, I was supposed to have learned how to play guitar. I was supposed to be nicer.
Needless to say, I did not make any resolutions this year. Not a single one.
Why should I lie to myself, yet another year, that I will begin a multitude of habits all at the same time and continue them throughout the year?
Why should I paint an idealized picture of the “new me” in my head—someone I know I’ll never be?
An adage I find wiser than “New year, new me,” is like it: “The first step is always the hardest.”
Every first step I’ve taken has been on a new year, to create this new me. It’s more like a first stumble, or a first step in the right direction followed by a Michigan U-turn.
I have given up on “new me.” January first is just another day, just another 24 hours in the monotonous lull of life. Why wait until then to begin creating healthy habits, to become a better person?
I shouldn’t have to wait for the turn of the year to turn my life around. I shouldn’t wait until the new year to make a resolution, to make a promise to myself that I will be better. That I will change.
What I really want is to go back to the old me. Old me, who would finish a book in a week and still be hungry for more; the old me who would actually practice her piano and write stories. The old me, who taught herself how to draw. The old me who was kinder.
The first step is always the hardest, even when it’s just a baby step. And although it’s about two weeks late, I finally chose my 2025 resolution: consistency.
