Blank slate. Clean wax (the tablet kind, you dirty-minded reader). Fresh start. That's beginning to seem to be the theme for 2011. Sure, I'm only 28 days in, but since I rang in 2011 with the childlike affliction of Chicken Pox, I can't help but wonder if starting anew is the plan.
Let me establish here and now that I am NOT a Resolutionist. I tried to be a few times (I think it was 1988, 1995, and 2000), but the failures were so epic in their scope that I decided that was not the personna I wanted to entertain. One year I tried to get a jump start on Resolutionism and hit the gym a month before the year ended. You know, right around Holiday Baking Season? Yeah. That didn't work out so well for me. On the treadmill I found myself sweating butter and Nutella for weeks; in January I became resentful when I had to roam around the gym waiting for Resolutionists to get off my treadmill; by February they had all caved and I was still a gym rat. And I still wasn't skinny. So why bother? It was way more fun to sit at Caribou and drink fattening candy coffees with my girlfriends!
So why now? Why pick 2011 as the time to start over and yet deny that the implementation of change by definition makes me a Resolutionist? Well, because it's the end of January, of course. All the other Resolutionists out there are this close to speeding to QuikTrip to get a pack of smokes, tossing their flashy new Nike Gear into the fireplace, forgetting their passwords to blogspot.com, and screaming at their children. But not I. No sir. I'm just getting ramped up.
What are my goals for this new year in the life? Well, I want to be healthy. I've lost the weight I needed to lose but I still have some serious cholesterol issues with which I need to deal. Hello Fish Oil (gag). I also really need to quit smoking. Hello Chantix. I need to find a job. Fingers crossed that this Vineyard (no, not the winery; the church) gig pans out; I need to take the GRE and get into Graduate School (practice test this morning was only moderately promising... 630/800 verbal; 410/800 quantitative-- DOH); I need to reassess the future of some of my relationships in order to ensure healthy, happy outcomes for myself and my children. That one is probably an ongoing chore, but one that I'll do with a glad heart.
And, of course, I need to be a better person, be kinder to animals, clean up my potty mouth, and live by the ideals of the new Food Pyramid. Those are all givens... So here I go, 2011. Brace yourself. In not being a Resolutionist I resolve to resolve all the resolutions.
