𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖲𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗌 || 𝖣𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖬𝗈𝗆𝗌

Abby's Trash, Cathy's Treasure

Up until now, I had never understood people's obsession with starting all over. Something about three hundred and sixty-five days passing makes people want to start something new. Whether it is on their birthday or in the last few minutes before a new year arrives, people always try to do something to change. Whether it is a birthday wish or a New Year's resolution, people always make themselves an empty promise of change. A fake sensation of fulfillment that'll only last for a few weeks before it's forgotten by the stress daily life tosses upon them.

There were exactly twenty-seven seconds left in the year when somebody asked me for the first time what my New Year's resolution was, and I stayed silent for the first ten seconds after the question was asked before I merely shrugged my shoulders and brushed it off with a laugh. A laugh that was clearly laced with doubt about the future.

When you're young, your biggest wish is to grow up, but when you're grown, your biggest wish is to go back in time to when you were a young child. In elementary school, you used to dream of big things you were sure you would accomplish one day. In middle school, your taste and interests change; so do your dreams and hopes for the future. Later on, you're pressured to figure out what you'll do for the rest of your life, and somehow, one simple slip-up might dictate the course the rest of your life takes.

I had an identity crisis at the age of eleven. The thing in the mirror, whose reflection was me, had no identity whatsoever. Its disheveled blonde hair, bloodshot blue eyes, and bruised forearms did not represent who I was, but back then, I was nothing.

I was nearly on the brink of death when I was given a second chance. A second chance to make something useful out of myself. The day I sat on the living room's big couch, sandwiched between my two older siblings, staring at both of my parents, and sometimes watching my confused younger sister turn her head back and forth between all of us, I promised myself that I wouldn't be the reason my mother cried anymore. I promised myself that I wouldn't be the reason my father had to take any more days off work. I wouldn't be the reason my older brother always made sure I ate something before I went to bed. I wouldn't be the reason my grandparents called every three days to check up on me. On that Monday evening, I promised myself that I would become a completely new person before the sun rose once again.

But when the stark reminders of everything I had gone through stared me right in the face, it cost me absolutely everything not to go back to being the thing I was for those two and a half months. I knew that at my age, I shouldn't be plagued by nightmares starring one of my biggest inspirations from when I was a young child. The very reason I used to believe I would one day open up my own dance studio. That person was also the very reason I had been meeting up with a therapist for the past nine months.

While I sat on that white leather couch, watching everyone else having the time of their lives, celebrating the new year we had just started, I wondered why I still wasn't able to figure out what I wanted to do with my future. It was like, in a way, I hadn't expected to actually make it that far, and now that I was there, I did not know what my next step was supposed to be.

All of the dreams my younger self used to have had disappeared from my mind, and the space where they used to be was, each time, more and more prevalent. It had been forty-nine minutes into the new year when I realized that I did not have any hopes or dreams. I did not have a New Year's resolution, and it seemed like I was the only person who didn't have one.

Then, as I stared at the ceiling the following night, attempting to fall asleep, it felt like I had taken my entire life for granted. I expected to be handed an entire life plan, but it turned out that I'd have to make it myself, and after a few months of having other people make decisions for me, it felt like I had no idea what I wanted. It felt like I had no desire to do anything.