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I'm sleepy, but I don't want to go to bed for some reason tonight. Maybe I just don't want Christmas time to end, and today, I went to my last official Christmas get-together of the year. And when I wake up tomorrow, it will be all over and time to watch 2008 roll in.

Highlights of 2007:
Our new swing/landscaping
Redoing the bathroom
Gardening over the summer
New "official adult" furniture
Hitting the 5 year mark in marriage
My brother proposing to his girlfriend
Deciding to go back to fine art
Vacation at Disney World
Becoming a vegetarian
Walking the dogs with Jesse

Reasons I'm excited for 2008:
Art!
My brother's wedding
Jesse moving toward "photography freedom"
Possible eco-vacation
My "birthday bulbs" will bloom in spring
Planting in the gardens
Installing a hummingbird feeder

Resolutions I will make in 2 days and then probably never keep:
Read more books
Run a 5k
Lose a few pounds

Resolutions I will make in 2 days and try desperately to keep:
Like myself enough to accept myself
Accept myself enough to live my authentic life

Maybe that doesn't totally make sense. 2007 was a hard year for me, possibly one of the hardest yet. I really struggled a lot, but in the midst of it, I think life got a bit more clear. And as always, the outcome from the struggle is even more beautiful than before. It's like looking into the closet in the spare bedroom. You open the door and see everything all piled up, stacked together. It's not great, but it works and everything is tucked in somehow. Sure, it's frustrating on the days when you want to pull something out and have to carefully maneuver so as not to disrupt the overall chaos and have it all come tumbling out, but overall, the system is doing the job. Then one day, you decide you are tired of having to maneuver. You want to just be able to grab what you need, when you need it, with no struggle. So you decide it's time to clean. And it always get worse, much much worse, before it gets better. In the midst of cleaning, instead of having a closet full of chaos, suddenly it's pouring out and you have an entire room full of chaos. So much so, that you can't believe everything lying in front of you was actually in that closet. But, eventually, you wade through it, and you put things where they belong, and when you are done, not only the closet, but the entire room, is cleaner, more organized, more sane.

For me, 2007 was the peak of the messy part. I have come to realize that much of my anguish in the last couple years stemmed from living an imitation life, trying to squeeze myself into a package that is more pleasing to the world than the truth. I hate to say it's about prestige and acceptance, but it is. I finally realized, the only thing I really mourn about leaving the art institute is the prestige...the feeling that I must be worth something because this exclusive school said yes to me, and waived money in my face, special money, "competitive money" reserved only for those with "exceptional artistic and academic ability". But now I don't have that. So I wonder, do I still have ability now that I have no "proof"? Do I still have ability now that I go to a school who lets everyone in? I have nothing to show the world to tell them that I have worth. And maybe the appeal of getting the psychology PhD all along, was just a search for that proof. Either way, art institute, PhD - a piece of paper on the wall declaring I can be called "doctor", a piece of paper on the wall declaring my art is something to be reckoned with - it all calls out to me, See, I am worth something. I have proof.

But alas, today I have no proof. Today I have no scholarship. Today I do not attend an exclusive school. Today I am not preparing for the GRE.

Today, I have student loan debt. Today, I work at a place with the word "barn" in the title. Today, I have the starts of an amazingly impractical degree. Today, I am just me and I cannot prove that I am worth anything. I have no piece of paper. I have no fancy title.

And today, I finally feel a bit of happiness...but I also won't lie and say the "proof" is no longer alluring. It is. So, 2008 is the year to fall in love with reality, to become allured by my own life and my own choices, to resist the urge to compare, to get to a place where I no longer feel the need for "proof".