Wish Me Luck.

Thinking about what I wanted to change in/for 2011, I thought of a lot of things: eating habits, exercise habits, daily habits, writing habits, etc. The usual New Years Resolutions stuff.

The one thing that kept popping up, however, was Honesty.

I want to be a more honest person. I'm not exactly a dishonest person now, I don't lie or cheat or steal. I do, however, partake in some gossip (something I'm not proud of), and I keep things to myself that hide the whole picture of how I feel about a person or a situation, the whole picture of who I am. I've been thinking on how I'd like to change these, and other, things.

Then, as always, Free Will Astrology decided to play with my head.

Can you finally escape the pain you got imprinted with during adolescence? Is it a realistic possibility that you could triumph over the conditioning you absorbed before you knew how to talk? Do you have the power to do what few of us have done, which is to get out from under the weight of the past, shed the inertia of your memories, and live brave and free in the raw truth of NOW? If there will ever in your life be a time when you can accomplish at least some of this noble quest, Gemini, it will be in 2011.

The raw truth of Now. That is exactly what I want, and what I need.

I'm going to spend the next month concentrating on purging myself of the Bad and Not Good For Me Secrets, on being upfront with people and not being fake, on telling the whole truth to the world and myself.

I won't give away all my secrets, because some are Good, or are secret for a reason, or aren't mine to give away. I won't stop being fake by brandishing when I'm unhappy or disapproving or downright cranky, but by highlighting the honest good moods and feelings instead of squashing them when I think it'd be more "popular" to do so.

I want to do what the horoscope suggests: get out from under the weight of my past and shed the inertia of my memories. I have spent most of my life hunched over under the burden of the guilt and shame I've either put on myself, or let others put on me. Neither is right. Neither has ever been okay, but I refuse to let it be okay anymore.

I want to say "I renounce it all from this moment!" but it's so much harder than that. Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. I know that many of you reading this can understand this feeling, understand the desire, the fear, and the difficulty of which I speak.

I want to live in the raw truth of now. The raw truth of now can be beautiful and ugly, can be easy and hard, can be exactly what I want and exactly what I fear. But it is not what the terrified 12-year-old that still hides in my brain thinks it is, nor is it what the anxious 18-year-old thinks it is, or even the mired 24-year-old. It is not what I've been taught by years of conditioning done by others and myself. It is not what has happened before, good or bad.

The raw truth of now is only what is in front of me. I can draw on experience, on what wisdom I've gained in my 25 years, on lessons I've been taught and told by the people in my life. But I need to learn that drawing on those things is not the same as looking into a crystal ball and knowing what will happen.

I can never know what will happen. That's terrifying and exhilarating.

Honesty, and the raw truth of now. That is what I want to grow in myself in the year 2011. I know I can do it.