In which Alicia makes a New Years Resolution

I realized something about myself yesterday.

I spent a big chunk of yesterday with one of my best friends, Rachel, and she and I just had a good old fashioned Girls Night Out. Rachel has always been my "therapist" friend. We turn to each other when we need to figure things out. And usually "figuring things out" includes either a lot of early morning walks in the park while we gab like speed-walking soccer moms, or a lot of late night drives on those unending, traffic-less country roads. There's a lot of talking, and a lot of listening, and even sometimes, some ink blots. We really do act like each others' therapists.

It was because of one of these conversations, late last night -- while watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail to boot -- that she helped me realize that I am so completely concerned with every one I care about being happy, that I tend to sacrifice my own happiness to ensure theirs. Which has kind of always been true I guess. In the past, when I have found out that one of my close friends likes the same guy I like, I step aside because I want them to be happy. I don't even think about it at the time, I think it's just a reflex. Even while sitting here I can think of at least 3 times that happened just in high school alone.

But here's the thing. It doesn't feel right to put myself first. I care so much about my friends and I would do anything for them -- well, for most of them at least. To think about what I really want before everyone else just seems selfish and wrong. But, at the same time I can't deny that I deserve to be happy at some point down the line.

Also, that quotation I want to get as a tattoo? ("It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.") I have to stop forgetting to live. I have to stop trying to make all of my friends happy, because that's just not realistic. It's just dwelling on dreams. Shit happens, and just because I wish it weren't that way, won't change the fact that it is that way, and it does happen.

So even though I am terrible at resolutions -- which is pretty much why this blog exists in the first place -- I am going to try to make this my resolution for 2012: I am going to start putting myself first. I don't care how selfish it may make me feel, I deserve to be happy too.