Keeping Resolutions

Nine days into 2008 and I'm feeling that What-the-hell-was-I-thinking? thud in the back of my head... Somewhere between making the list of uber-ambitious goals for the new year and taking baby steps to begin accomplishing them I forgot to ask myself what was actually feasible, whether or not I could handle such a hiccup in daily life, and how I would tackle a day like today when the cumulative effects of my baby steps start taking a physical toll.

I've always been ambitious, which - most people would agree - is a good thing. However, couple ridiculous ambition with a personality that teeter-totters between obsessively-compulsively stressed and guilt-laden and it's a recipe for disaster. If I'm not running around like a maniac completing tasks like a tea-kettle whistling into your eardrums, I'm sitting around lethargic and exhausted feeling bad about everything I'm not doing. Ah, it's a lose-lose situation that I've managed to somehow make work for much of my life... before the kettle bursts I tend to kick back and relax, and before the guilt is crippling I pick up pace again.

Tonight I'm coming down from atop Mount Psychotic Over-Achiever to find myself wiped and bummed out. I forgot to take this cycle into consideration when creating these goals for 2008:

Learn French
Learn advanced CSS development
Yoga twice (or more) a week
Drink less - only weekends and/or special occasions
Work on new web projects
Consider/research grad school for 2009
Get more physically active (ideas I've listed include rock climbing, skiing, and ballroom dancing)

The over-arching goal of this year? Healthier body, healthier mind. Good goals, yes... and I've already scouted the path for success: I've been doing online CSS courses daily, adhering to my yoga goals, not drinking, eating well, working on some web projects, and have plans to get cracking on the French Language CD-ROM Mom got me for Christmas. Things are going well.

But today I feel wiped.

Honestly, I've been go-go-going at work and at home and even though I've paused to watch a few movies and - hypothetically - yoga is relaxing, too, the sudden shortage of cookies and chocolate as well as wine and... well, more wine... is definitely affecting me. Tonight I drove home from work daydreaming about the bottle of Bailey's in the fridge and how lovely an ounce or two on the rocks would be...

Tonight is my yoga class. There's no reason I can't go. But every bit of me wants to crash on the couch with a glass of wine and hunk of Ghiradelli dark chocolate. Ugh.

On the bright side, what this experience is teaching me is that I am not at all an alcoholic, as I have casually wondered. An alcoholic would have crashed this sober-train several days ago and the bottle of Bailey's would be long gone. However, I am realizing that I use alcohol as a crutch because, for me, it's the most enjoyable and convenient way of relaxing and powering-down. The challenge is to find other ways to do so that are calorie free.

Well, it's all a work-in-progress. Things are going well and this certainly isn't a precursor to throwing in the towel. Quite the opposite actually: After I publish this post I'm grabbing my yoga bag and forcing myself out the door. And when I get home? I just might have a sip of Irish Cream. Who says I can't have my cake and eat it too?

Besides, the real lesson to learn about resolutions is to be realistic in the first place!