Annual Aspirations
A.K.A it’s New Year’s Eve and I can’t believe it’s been a year since I didn’t become a better person!
Ahhh, the New Year, a time to take stock of your life and face the future with a new, positive outlook. Or, if you are me, a time to lie about all the great life changes you don’t intend to make once you are not under the considerable influence of bottles of cheap plonk.
Every year I give the old resolution train a ride and every year the conductor throws me off before I reach the first station (in this metaphor, the first station is about the 5th of January). This year I have decided that sharing my resolutions publicly may increase my personal accountability. I think my problem in the past has been that I have aimed too high. I reached for the stars when perhaps I should have been reaching for the Tim Tams. This time I am trying to be more realistic, more of a balance between challenge and success. In the interest of full disclosure, I have done this before and the results were lack luster to say the least. Still not to be deterred, I shall march forth (I may have mentioned it below, but more Victorian military terminology in my daily lexicon is a real goal this year; so far… winning!)
Kellie’s Achievable New Year’s Resolutions for 2018 (the whole year this time, not just the first 4 days).
Putting more effort into looking shocked when my poor decisions have negative outcomes: Now this one is going to be a test of my abilities. Usually when things turn pear-shaped due to a complete lack of foresight on my part, I realise that the disaster is coming whilst embarking on the activity that caused it. So, when people ask “why on earth would you do that?” or say “Madam, would you please accompany me to the station” I shrug my shoulders, and nonchalantly comply. This year I want to look more shocked at my negative outcomes, like they don’t happen often, and this is really out of left field. I’m working on an expression that’s a hybrid of my daughter eating my hidden chocolate stash, “What? Who me? Couldn’t be because I’m pretty much lactose intolerant” and Bill Clinton’s “I did not have relations with that woman.” I realise I could also make a concerted effort to make better choices, but these are meant to be achievable goals.
Being more social (and not weird and awkward while I do it):
When asked what I look for when I’m meeting new people, my answer is the door; or actually any exit where the fall won’t kill me. Two friends, who needs two friends, I mutter nervously. I am not very good in social situations, it’s not that I don’t like people, I just become even more maladroit than I am usually (which is already at a stable, Dungeon and Dragons convention, social awkwardness level). Once I spent an entire evening speaking to someone in a South African accent (no, I do not know why, it just came out and then I couldn’t stop it). Then I had to try and blend it back to my usual dialect without making it really obvious that I had been speaking fake Afrikaans all evening. I can tell you, it is jolly hard to come back from that, outside of blaming one of your other personalities (not surprisingly also not an endearing gambit for new friends). In 2018, I want to be more socially graceful and less believable when I tell me people I’m out on day release – I’d also like to fire the editor in my brain who hasn’t done an ounce of work since I uttered my first words in ’73.
Reducing my nap times:
Cutting down, not cutting out, that would be just crazy talk, but I do need to consider being awake for more than 4 hours at a time without a little shut eye. Obviously on work days I manage to remain mostly responsive for most of the day, although I do sporadically drift off at lunch time and have had to pinch myself on several occasions during silent reading when I feel myself beginning to lose consciousness. But the weekends and holidays are like narcolepsy parties for me and the more things that I need to get done, the more naps I tend to take. 2018 is the year that if I wake up at 10am, I will not be asleep again by 1pm. If this resolution doesn’t pan out, I may just change the term naps to horizontal life pauses. At least that way it sounds like I have more self-direction than a 3 three-year-old.
Stop talking to my Uber driver when I am drunk:
On my way home from my next soiree (read, anytime I am not in bed eating Pringles re-watching the saucy parts of Outlander by 7pm), I am going to try my level upmost not to violate my Uber driver with a 20 minute soliloquy, entitled, ‘Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Kellie But She Intends to Tell You’.
Sober my taxi rides go something like this:
“Hello Driver, the quickest way to my intended destination is (insert simple direction).”
“Goodbye Driver, thank you.”
When lubricated by alcoholic social awkwardness antidote, things are very, very different, and usually end with me in tears slurring a phrase like “and that’s why I felt abandoned by my father.” Yup…a real class act. I once rifled through a driver’s console and tidied his glove compartment whilst telling him that he should marry his girlfriend because loneliness is the nemesis of the human condition. I think that trip ended in, “and that’s why I fear intimacy.” Changes must be made.
So here it is, not exactly comprehensive but I feel I’ve managed to avoid many of the usual pitfalls like avoiding chocolate and upping my kale intake (snort). So, whether you are busy making resolution lists or going where the breeze takes you, have a wonderful and happy New Year.
I am hopeful that I will reach my goals for 2018. Well…at least until January 4th!