New Year, Same Me?

Why I am pledging to be the same unhinged poet I was last year.

Happy New Year, y’all. It’s that time of year where the resolutions are flying like the blackbirds in my oak trees, and as much as I love the turning of the page the new calendar year brings, I am feeling less like I need to overhaul my whole life and more like I need to enjoy the one I’ve got.

Which explains why I’ve been watching the blackbirds outside of my window.

There are a lot of really wonderful and valid reasons to make resolutions, and I am certainly not against having a goal or intention for the year. For myself, however, my motivations for making them weren’t really the best.

Every year I set a fitness goal. Every year I have failed miserably. Not because I am incapable of discipline because I most certainly am. I have a whole body of work that proves I know how to see something to fruition. (This is something I have to remind myself of when it feels like a project is stretching out into an interminable task, like Sisyphus and that dang rock.)

No, it’s not a lack of discipline or organization that impedes my ability to get rock hard abs or Michelle Obama arms.

I’ve discussed this at length in various places, so I won’t belabor the point, but for me, this sort of goal does not work.

So what’s the point?

The point is there’s nothing wrong with me.

I don’t say this because I’m perfect because God and everybody else who knows me in real life or online knows that’s not true. That being said, there is nothing so wrong with how I exist as a person on this mortal plane that would require me to be skinnier in order to live.

My issue with resolutions is more about my motivation behind the goals. For years, I wanted to be smaller for the sake of taking up less space, not for my improved health. I felt like I needed to punish my body for existing in a way that looked “wrong” rather than existing in a body that needed care and attention.

So now, I examine my motives and if they’re off-kilter, I adjust accordingly.

This realization changed how I looked at New Year’s Resolutions. I didn’t need to fix anything, I needed to allow myself the tenderness of a closer look.

There is so much freedom in realizing that a goal does not need to be a punishment. It can be fun or silly or downright ridiculous. I recently saw an Instagram post about a man whose whole goal for the new year was to pretend he was living in a cabin with no wi-fi or cell signal every weekend. The idea was to take time to disconnect from the black hole of the internet and reacquaint himself with some of the things he used to love: games, crafts, books, etc.

I freakin’ love that idea.

This year, Jared and I sat down with the girls and we made a kind of bucket-list for 2025. Here are just a few from our list, and please let me know if you can guess who said what :)

• eat pizza 5x

• quit toughing out random aches and pains and actually go to the doctor

• draw a “picture of me and Mama”

• go to the cabin

• play a “fro-monica.”

• go to the beach

• more walks

• learn the C chord on the guitar and play “Nothing But the Blood” at church

• finalize a club

• read instead of scrolling

• plan a few hiking trips

• read entire New Testament

• plan a vacation for the two of us

• finish a cross stitched stocking started more than a year ago

• minimize wasted phone time

We also, as a family, decided on a few values that we want to really work on promoting in our home: love, respect, adventure, integrity, and self control.

As for professional goals, I’m happy to share some with y’all for accountability purposes. I’m holding these with loose hands, full well knowing that life be life-in’ sometimes, and I will need to pivot accordingly.

• finish TRWP’s third draft by my birthday, January 30th

• finish blackout/collage project by February 28th

• finish Carly Watter’s publishing course

• double Substack following

• query TRWP in the fall

• submit poetry ten times

Again, not an exhaustive list, but I feel like these are doable and I’ve made a list of how to achieve these goals, including a monthly check in with a fellow Southern Scribe Sophie Leigh Fox.

My motivation behind these goals are to increase my following and build community with other writers, readers, and other really awesome people. I want to better myself at my craft and help others do so as well. I want to finish a couple of these projects that have been drawn out because of life circumstances to make room for a couple of new ideas that I am excited about.

I am also working on an idea for a paid Substack tier that would help y’all improve your writing with prompts, exercises, specific reading and other inspiration.

What about y’all’s plans? What’s your motivation?

I’ll be back soon with some more information about what I’ve been up to since I last updated. (Spoiler alert: I was on an amazing podcast AND someone was brave enough to publish some of my blackout collages!) Plus, so much more.

As always, I love y’all and I’m so grateful that y’all take the time to read my emails. y’all’s encouragement makes the hard days better and I hope I can do the same for each of you!

This is me, cheering us all on!

Love, Tristan

P.S. Don’t forget to tell me about your fun plans for 2025. Also, does the paid Substack tier sound like something you would be interested in? Reply to this email and let me know :)