26 is The New 25

I turned 26 last Friday. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, but Whitney! You don’t act a day over 12! Or look a day over however much younger you would like to look or act!

Thanks, reader. That makes me feel really good about myself! I DON’T look a day over fetus.

I spent my 25th year wallowing. I worked, kind of. I wrote, hardly ever. I didn’t do the things I have wanted to do because I was so afraid of actual success that I just worked out like three hours a day instead.

So I’ve decided that last year was my practice year. It was the year I needed to lie on my couch and ponder why toasted cheez-its are so good and why American politics are so bad and why eating toasted cheez-its while watching American politics makes me feel really, really good.

This year, though, I’ve created an intent for myself. As a yoga teacher, I begin each class with an intent. Usually it’s along the lines of, “today’s intent is to not fart copiously in downward dog.” (Just kidding, it’s never that. I encourage flatulence. It helps the muscles relax… That is also a lie. Apparently my intent for age 26 is not “living honestly”.)

I know you’re grasping your computer screen, sweating with anticipation of this big reveal. Kind of like how I grasp the computer screen and sweat with anticipation when I check PostSecret on Saturday nights at 10PM because I can’t wait until Sunday, damnit, I’m the youngest child and I get what I want WHEN I WANT IT OH GOD WHY I AM I CRYING.

My intent is to follow through. That means not being afraid of querying agents up the wazoo, or revising my writing, or writing something new, or applying for jobs, or merging amphibian DNA with that of a velociraptor so I can have a pet that will play hide-and-seek with me.

The point is, I’ve realized that I’m all talk. I’m going to do yoga in the mornings!  I say, and then I sleep until 930 and don’t do yoga at all. I’m going to query that agent I met a while ago! I say, and then I promptly faint in anxious nonaction. I’m going to clean my house today! I say, and then I knit a mohair sweater from all the Atreyu-hair dust-bunnies (just kidding. I vacuum on the regular. I’m not THAT far gone. Yet.).

So from now on, I follow through. If I say I’m going to do something, well, damn it, I’m going to do it, because I’m 26 years-old and that means I should probably get off this couch and go work out.

Maybe later.