I got suckered into some YouTube clickbait a few days ago. The thumbnail was a side by side shot of a woman with abs and a woman with unbuttoned pants (presumably because they wouldn’t button?). The title was something along the lines of “I changed my whole life by doing this one thing.” Taken together, all of it resonated with post-Thanksgiving me on a startlingly deep level, so I clicked.
The one thing, of course, was not one thing, and not a simple collection of things either. As the video revealed, her nebulous thing was deciding to keep the many promises she’d made to herself – to work out, to read, to be kind to herself, etc. - in the mode of “the relationship you have with yourself is the most important.” Because, for example, every time she didn’t work out when she told herself she would, she’d broken her own trust. A little meta, a little circular, very clickbait-y. But I got it, it made sense.
November was THE month of broken promises for this space. I stopped writing, I stopped posting, I stopped engaging (and for no good reason). I could liken it to a sick person who stops taking their meds because they feel better. Except, of course, they feel better because of the meds. That truth eludes them. Here, I got into a good rhythm and what I wrote and posted was well received, I wasn’t feeling like a weird poser anymore, so I stopped. Except, of course, the feelings of success and satisfaction were because of my consistently. That truth eluded me.
Life can get hairy in the day-in and day-out. It’s made in the moments and, apparently, the promises kept in those moments. So here I am writing, because I promised myself, I’d write twice a week even if the words never saw the light of day. And after writing I’ll read my book because at the beginning of this year I promised myself I’d read a book once a month (currently at four books, but maybe something miraculous will happen). And tomorrow I’ll work out again after I stopped doing so for all of last week when I was home because I promised myself that my health is important enough to get up at 5:30 am for.
That woman’s clickbait put me on notice about myself. This space was meant to document those promises and track my own progress in this oh so strange transition that’s starting to settle into my oh so regular life. I used to desperately want my everything to feel normal again, and now that it’s starting to I’m losing the commitment and urgency that, after nearly five months, finally calmed my heart.
So here I am again re-promising and re-committing to the things that make my heart sing and my world settle down. It’ll have to happen again and again and again because I’m a little flawed. But hopefully, even the act of a promise, kept for as long as my humanity can muster, is promise enough.