Next week, it will be a new year. Every time we roll around the week after Christmas, my mind is blown. We're about to leave the old year behind. We're about to start a new one! But in this space in between, when no one is doing anything truly constructive, people are just kind of screwing off at their jobs in anticipation of the big end-of-year party, when banks and schools and libraries have insanely strange hours, everything feels so... liminal.
I love liminal spaces. As a kid, I used to hang out in door ways. So this week? This week is my week. I'm standing directly in the doorway of the new year, with the old behind me. When I step through, I need to be prepared.
At this point, I could make a lot of common resolutions. I could say I plan to lose weight. I plan to work harder and write more books. I plan to have a clean house all the time. I'll always have freshly baked cookies, I'll shower every day and wear makeup. I'll go on walks, I'll stop yelling at my dog when kicking him would suffice. No, I'm totally kidding about that last one. My dog lives to be yelled at. It's our love language.
But none of those resolutions would make me happy. People concentrate on using the new year in terms of how to make themselves a better person. By whose standards? I'm a great person already. I'm awesome, and everyone likes me. That's not bragging, that just an honest assessment of the situation. And while I definitely have areas to work on, that's between me and my therapist. That had nothing to do with building the best possible 2012 for me.
So here, in no particular order, are my resolutions for 2012:
1. Build a time machine. Go back to 1994. Enjoy the comforts and prosperity therein.
2. Oh, but put a wifi hotspot in my time machine, because for real, I'm not dealing with dial-up or America Online.
3. Watch at least one episode of Doctor Who every day.
4. Spend as much time just goofing off as I do writing.
5. Craft. Craft like a whore with her ass on fire. If that whore was a crafter.
6. Teach my toddler more swears to shock conservative relatives.
7. Stop worrying about my weigh and my body, because for serious, it's broken down. I need to recognize that God gives everyone different gifts. Mine is eating a whole tray of cupcakes.
8. Figure out the time zone difference between here and Hawaii so I'm not constantly waking up my Navy friend.
Let's just all hope the new year is as prosperous as my year in alternate-past 1994 will be, everybody!
3 comments:
Well said! I don't make resolutions because I break them within a week so I quit that years ago. You are right about being awesome. We all are. I've been thinking about all the ads and TV programs blaring into our homes over the past week about weight loss and it hit me that we are constantly being told that because we are overweight (fat, if you like) we are not acceptable. What a horrible message! I am acceptable. I am beautiful. I am happy. I don't need the media or society to tell me I'm not. I now turn those shows and commercials off and go live my life and make myself happy. I don't need New Year Resolutions to do that. Great blog today!
It seems to me that a better time to make resolutions for changing your life would be around Lent, but I'm Catholic, so I save everything for Lent. I call it, "Get out of New Year's Resolutions Free!" month.
I have a long standing hatred for the attitudes of the non-fat toward the fat, She. Specifically, the one that demands that every time I put a bite of food in my mouth, the non-fat feel they need to inform me of the nutritional content of the food. You know that old adage, "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels"? Well, I say the person who truly believes that has never known the joy of polishing off a whole bar of mini snickers bars.
I wish you lovely ladies a wonderful New Year's and all the best for 2012.
Great blog.
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