2011: The Year of the Good Girl

The blog post below is the opening post of a new blog I have started. Why two personal blogs? The project with this blog, Kristin forteller – and sometimes she tells a tale, has always been to write longer texts, with an attempted stronger narrative. My new blog, Kosebloggen – En blogg om alt som er bra, has lighter, shorter posts, and deals with all that is good in life. Since this new blog is in both Norwegian and English too, I hope to see you there as well. Meanwhile I thought the opening post there was also suitable for this blog, so here I go, doubling up:

2011: THE YEAR OF THE GOOD GIRL

Do you grow pensive as the year is coming to an end, like I do? Do you have strong opinions about what shall be better in the new year? I don’t think it is such a bad idea taking the opportunity which arrives with the turn of a year to stop and think: How have I spent these past twelve months?

I’m going to answer that question now… *nervous laughter*

In 2011 old sins came back to haunt me!

There I said it. Now it has been said.

I have taken a long, hard look in the mirror and concluded that though many things turned out good, I haven’t managed to do all the things that make me a good person. Truth be told, I can actually be a lot better.

Now the good girl in me feels compelled to list all the things I’m not good at. She wants to criticize me for not being skinny enough, but also that I’m too self-centered. I haven’t paid down fast enough on my mortgage, and my office wardrobe hasn’t been renewed. She wants to bitch about me always writing too long and talking too much, that I’m not socially aware enough, that I’m a bad listener and read the wrong stuff. I lag behind on things, and yet I’m not thorough enough, meanwhile turning into a bitch when I am stressed out. She claims that I am lazy, that I sleep too little and that my priorities are out of whack. And the fact that I drew up a subscription for that phone book of a pretentious newspaper was a really bad idea, because who has the time to read that thing?

If the good girl had been a real person, and not some destructive voice inside my head, I would have screened her phone calls. I would have crossed the street if she came toward me on the pavement. I would have hid her poisonous Facebook-updates, and I would have “forgotten” to invite her to girls’ night out.

I, the author of this blog which is supposed to deal with everything that is good in life, know the good girl as well as I know myself. Let me tell you one more thing about the good girl: There’s very little good about her! And so I must admit to a sense of disappointed when discovering that she has cast her long shadows into my 2011. After all, I really thought I defeated her many years ago. Besides, that pretentious newspaper subscription was her idea, not mine!

2012 is going to be about everything the good girl is not good at. It will be about more time for fun and games. It will be about relaxing and trusting other people, the world, myself and all the stuff I really am good at. 

In 2012 I will be good at enjoying myself. 2012 shall be nothing short of good times!