So I was taking a well-earned break half way through one of my assignments (all on schedule thus far, holla for progressing as a human being) and because I am apparently living about two months in the future (legit, I spent half an hour on the tumblr Christmas tag today) I started thinking about new years resolutions. As is typical for the Madz0r, once I started this pondering it unfolded into a glorious cascade of involuntary procrastination and now I'm just sitting here epiphanising left right and centre.

Generally people think of new years resolutions as a load of BS, where everyone is like yeah imma gym it hard this year and make a scrapbook and stop drinking shots of absinthe with my breakfast, and then by the second week of January the world is once more chubby and unproductive and drunk by noon. However I, probably because I view myself as the protagonist of a fantastic book or movie, tend to respond well to symbolic fresh starts, and my birthday is January 2nd, so the new year tends to present a double whammy of rebirthing potential.

I keep getting distracted by Downton Abbey. Soldier on.

As a keen list maker and planner of things that will largely remain undone, I have made many, many unkept resolutions in my time, and my current theory as to their abandonment was that they were super broad ,like 'succeed at life' and 'become very famous'. Howevz, the new years between me being 16 and 17 I sat down with my god sister/BFF Sussy and made a bangin list of terrifyingly specific resolutions that were tailored to the aspects of my life that I wanted to change. They ranged from winning House Drama to either getting or getting over a certain guy (did both, snaps for 17 year old Maddi), and I ended up smashing it 100%.* At the end of the year when I looked back over the list I felt super accomplished, but because I had no idea what the next year would be like I didn't make another one and I forgot about it until now.

For the first 20 years of my life I was chilled out to a detrimental extent but, as I may have mentioned before, some inconvenient form of anxiety has recently decided to worm its way into my life and briefly take the wheel. (Note that I am now imagining a worm driving a 1920s style automobile.) It sucks and I'm not going to fully go into it, but it pretty much flipped my personality 180 degrees and made me think I was going slightly crazy on and off for a large part of the last four months. Once I finally figured out what was happening I got sick of this very quickly and have now decided it can kindly run over yonder hills and never return, but that's a lot more easily said than done.

One of the things that I've realised has periodically disappeared since this tomfoolery started is my ability to process complex concepts. This pisses me off more than I can even begin to explain, because my brain is probably my favourite thing about myself, but lately it feels as though it's sitting in the middle of a giant plate of jelly (always green when I picture it, idk why) and it's really difficult for anything to properly get in or out.** Now that I've reached a point where I'm not as upset, scared or worried anymore, the whole ordeal is just pissing me right off, and I have straight up refused to allow this to continue.

My inherent stubbornness is apparently paying off because I can definitely feel myself getting better, but it's still quite shit, and the resolution thang made me think about what I need to change to make things easier for now. I was thinking I should take the same approach I did with my List of Glorious Success and break everything down into steps, so that I can get things done and feel semi functional even when my brain decides to jump right back into jelly funtimez, and then I was like... why do I not do that with everything anyway? I always think of huge goals and make elaborate plans and to do lists, and then they just sit there because I can't figure out where to start, and I have a massive problem with becoming intimidated by the things I want to do and just leaving them, which is something I really want to change, so I'm thinking mayhaps this shitty, shitty brain block has forced me into having a handy little epiphany.

I'm not about to make a list of detailed resolutions just yet, but my new goal is to have made my anxiety fuck off as completely as possible by new years so that I can draft some life-changing gold in time for my 21st. I have a slightly more uplifting post planned for some time in the next few days, once I've finished my assignments, so stay tuned what I am hoping will be the return of normal Maddi and her carefree sarcasm.

Peace and blessinz.

PS. I ate a really large bowl of popcorn while I was writing this and now ma stomach don't feel too good

*Apart from moving to New York but I did that in February the next year so I feel like that was a product of scheduling rather than resolution failure.
**WHICH IS VERY INCONVENIENT FOR MY UNI ASSIGNMENTS JUST SAYIN.