I am breathing in 2018 and looking ever forward to this brand New Year. This is a year of new beginnings, new travels, and new places.  This is a new year where there will be communal living. Where there will be a grand reduction of stuff and material objects. This will be a year of creativity and of finding myself and who I really am.

For the longest time I have been two Amy’s.  One Amy the good little girl who always always tried to do the right and good thing.  Who had such high standards for perfection in herself.  Who set impossibly high standards and who never really measured up.

Then there was the Amy who rebelled against that. Who tore all that down. Who pouted in a corner, who yearned to get messy, make mistakes, and take chances.  The good little girl tried so desperately to squash her and the bad girl, not to be denied reached right around her and did it anyway.  This rebellious Amy even took the good little girl’s hands and ripped her skin over and over.  She made outrageous and hazardous moves that could really tear everything apart.  She needed to be heard.

“You are not perfect!”  Rebellious Amy screamed. “You are human.  You need to make mistakes.  You need to mess up. You simply need to be.”

The good Amy often times refuse to listen.  She rationalized and she wrote.  She tried to do her best.  However, she was insecure always.  Never secure in anything she thought.

I don’t wish to be two people anymore.  I don’t wish to be good Amy on one day, bad Amy on the other.  Black and white.  I want to simply be one being.

A few weeks back I went over to Goodwill and picked up a wonderful selection of books. One of those was  “One Day at a time in Al-anon.”  The other book was “Simple Abundance:  A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.”

I am not an alcoholic.  However, I do display a lot of the perfectionist tendencies that lead to addictive behaviors.  I am a skin picker.  My skin is like my alcohol.  It brings me my own temporary coping mechanism.

These day by day, one day at a time philosophies has been the healing salve that I have much needed.  Perfectionists always feel that the world should never see what they feel inside which is never good enough, never important enough, never right enough. They hide it deep down. However, what they think is hidden is actually right there on the surface.  People can see it, actually they are way more visible than people who are actually quite content with themselves.

So this next year, as I write my book about 4 very dear men who have changed my life and who threw me on a journey I never knew I needed to take, I open myself fully on this blog.  I am vulnerable and I am not by any means perfect.

My vision board is to be true to myself.  To learn how to exercise my “no” muscle.  To grow and learn.  To write here often.  To simply be and breathe and take things one day at a time.