TheBanyanTree: New Years

[Pam Lawley]

I'm not much on New Year's Resolutions.

I have a big desk calendar... each day is a 3-inch (about) square, and
flipping over this month reveals next.  I *love* getting a new one every
November... a whole year laid out perfectly clean and sparkling pretty!  No
doctor's appointments scratched in, no meetings scratched out, no coffee
stains or weird little notes left by others.  Fresh and new and totally
unblemished!!  I think it's a perfect metaphor for life.

As a side note, I also like them after December 31st...  I moved buildings
twice this year, and I finally had to bite the bullet and throw away my old
calenders that had been wedged in between my desk and the walls of my
cubicle.  I kept keeping them thinking I might need to go back and check
something, but I never did.  Mostly they represented giant diaries of the
past four or five years of my life...  Anybody who knows me knows that if it
ain't on that calendar, it ain't happening!!  But alas, I sent them all to
the dump.

Anyway, the new year... it represents a whole twelve months, 52 weeks, 365
days, you get the idea, of nothing screwed up!  Nobody's feelings I hurt, no
extra calories I consumed, no fight I started.  Of course, to be fair,
there's also no feelings that I soothed, no extra calories I either shunned
or thoroughly friggin enjoyed!!, and no fight I conceded.   But I think,
it's human nature to want to start it positively!  In a perfect world I
wouldn't have an extra ounce of fat or spend a single hour on the couch when
I could be moving!!  Which is really a stupid statement since I think my
life is pretty close to perfect - or at least a lot more than I deserve or
ever expected! - and I do have some fat which keeps growing as I get older!,
and I do love to watch me some 'House'!   So anyway, to positively start
this next year, I think there are a few things I should resolve to do.

I haven't resolved to do much for a new year since the year I resolved to
stop drinking.  Oh yeah, I stopped on January 1st like a good little
resolutionist!  And, then I started again a few weeks later.  To my credit,
life is all about progress -  not perfection! though, and I managed to carry
out the rest of that resolution later in the year.  Likewise, this year, I
don't hold out a lot of hope that I'll actually follow through all 12
months, 52 weeks, etc, with these resolutions, but at least it'll make me
feel as if I've started the year brightly, knowing that there are things
about myself I'd like to improve, and actually taking a step or two to do
it!  Maybe I'll lose interest along the way, or maybe something will spark
and change my life completely!  It's a whole new clean slate and anything
can happen!!

Happy New Year's friends!!!!!!!!

Health and happiness to each of you in 2011!

Pam