I ran in the cold for less than 5 minutes today, even though I’d originally planned for 20 minutes. I was sure that I could shake off the cold and propel myself forward against the wind chill. It chafed against my cheeks, I shook my hands free from its grip, that was to be expected. 3 minutes in, I struggled to breath. So I stopped running. Then I walked, and started running again, back home. I stopped my running app, accepting defeat.

“The weather decided to be cold here today”, I said at some point at the start of one of my meetings today, contributing to the weather discussion taking place amongst my colleagues. Suddenly aware of the jitters in my stomach, I contemplated adding, “I also decided to not overthink this meeting, and yet here we are”. That had been one of my resolutions for the new year, becoming fearless and more confident in myself, unafraid to speak up in meetings.

I spent the last days of December dreaming up who I would become in 2022. Thinking about the steps I would have to take to become her – paint more, write more, speak up at work more. I wrote everything down in a Google doc, believing earnestly all along, that all it would take for me to achieve them would be sheer determination and willpower. Grit, if you will. This morning as the wind licked my face, it became clear that I would need more than self determination and will power.

It’s a fact that became clear to me as I settled more into 27 and is even clearer now as I begin my 28th year. As laugh lines deepen and 2 miles around the block feels more taxing than ever, I look at some of the decisions I made when I was 23 about who I would be at 27, 28. I thought that at 28 I would have the kind of rich inner life – hard earned through willpower and determination – that would render me sufficiently stoic in the face of the kinds of hardships “normal” 28 year olds face. The kind of inner resilience that would allow me to respectfully, but self-assuredly say back to the elders in my community who insist that 28 is the year to get married that they don’t know what they’re talking about. The kind of inner life that would allow me to fight the constant humiliation that work often feels like.

My willpower is brittle and weak and it’s failed me more times than it’s been faithful. There’s a lot that I resolved to have and do when I was 23 that I haven’t achieved yet. And there’s a lot I wanted to do by the end of the year that I most certainly will not be able to achieve. It makes me want to stay up all night in my khaki overalls and paint without stopping. It makes me want to feverishly churn out 3 blog posts by the end of the month and wake up at 5:30 to run 5 miles in the cold and read all the great books about what it means to be an amazing UX designer all by tomorrow morning so that I can be a magnetic force at work. It’s hard to imagine another route to the kind of life I want to have.

Every now and again I force myself to picture my life many years from now. The one where I’m kinda gray and haven’t achieved any of the dreams I have. No books. No entrepreneurial pursuits. No children. No husband. Still peeved to tears at the sight of a hairstyle that didn’t live to see its full potential. Sentences still peppered with “I don’t know”, and I wonder if this version of myself feels like a failure. Is she resentful? Is she envious of the people living the life she once dreamt of having? Maybe she’s a hard cynic who hates her life. But what if she’s not? What if she’s living a true life of freedom, unencumbered by this desire to constantly achieve. What if she really understands what it means to be loved and fully accepted without condition? Will she stop striving and working so hard to “become somebody”? I want to believe she will.