New Years Day came and went and even though I had given it a lot of thought, I had no resolutions. Last year I hammered out 6 resolutions without giving it much thought, the year before, 4. This year, none.

Slappy and I spent our New Year’s Day and the day after skiing together. It was a last minute, wonderful and needed quick getaway in a gorgeous environment.

At the start of the second day of skiing, we chose to go to a different ski resort than we had the previous day (the lift tickets are interchangeable between the two mountains). After one run, we were miserable. All the runs on this resort were filled with terrain obstacles, which, though a snowboarder’s dream, was not what we had hoped for.

We left after that first run and took the shuttle back to the other resort where we’d skied on Friday. And the whole time we were riding the shuttle, I kept thinking about how much I wished we had just gone to this other mountain in the first place. We had wasted over an hour, missed the inter-resort shuttle by 5 minutes and had to wait 30 minutes for another one. We would have to take a shuttle back at the end of the day to get back to our car and the waits for those shuttles would be even longer. The whole ride I sat and stewed in regret.

And then it hit me. My resolution for this new year.

Throughout 2009 I found myself in a constant state of regret. Yes, bad shit happened A LOT, but good things did too. I spent so much time looking back at the bad, at what had gone wrong, that I completely missed the good. I couldn’t see the potential new days and fresh starts ahead of me.

I will always be critical of myself, it’s just how I am. I will also probably always reflect on the past, and see my errors. There are just some things that I can’t really change, resolutions or not. But this year, I will let those errors go. If there’s a lesson to learn from something then I will take that with me, but I will not take the regret. I will not take the self-deprication, nor the self-destruction. I will leave the past in the past, I will move on.

In 2010, I won’t spend days and weeks thinking about something that I cannot undo or change. I won’t spend days and weeks thinking about what could’ve been or what I missed out on. I won’t spend my life regretting. I won’t destroy my chances at happiness any more.

I know this change will not come easily, nor quickly. But it is something that needs to happen so very much.

And so I start 2010, facing the future. With my eyes, heart and mind focused on what lies ahead, on all that is yet to be lived.

(Also? I decided somewhat haphazardly and probably foolishly to try to do project 365, where I take a picture each day and post it to my flickr account. My first 3 pictures were taken with my iPhone because I don’t plan ahead well, but hopefully things will get better from here. If I can ever get a flickr widget to work, I’ll link them so you can see how the year is progressing.)

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