I think that’s what New Year’s Resolutions are about: they’re lists of all the ways this year that I will collect and claw and accrue more shiny things to attract more attention and followers and lovers and mates so that I will be loved and happy.
If being loved and appreciated is what you want – that’s what I want – then burn the list and its indirect map littered with useless objects and empty fame and drive straight to the love.
You get love by giving it and growing into it. You find love by losing your seedy old self to it and inviting your emerging self to unfurl, root, and bloom. Relationships are a garden. In them, you grow.
And when you find that juicy green garden of love, throw out that tattered map sketched on the back of the hackneyed script cobbled together from countless Harlequin Romances, skimmed psychological tracts, every single Jennifer Aniston rom-com ever made, and bad advice from bitter ex’s. (We’re all bitter ex’s once in a while.) Throw out the advice from all your friends. Throw out the shoulds. Throw out the milestones and the timetable for the three kids and the three-bedroom house and all the things you ought to do. Throw out the shit-tests and the attempts to make him do what you want so you’ll have tangible proof (in the form of obeisance) that he adores and wants to please you
and just let him adore and please you.
Burn the list. Trash the script. Love.
