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I am resolutely refusing to make any resolutions for this coming year. Sure, it’s the start of a new decade, sure there are things I might want to reexamine in my aging life, sure I could save a lot of money — not to mention a liver — if I gave up alcohol. BUT do I really want to do any of those things?? Well, obviously the answer is a resolutely LOUD maybe. I guess that’s a contradiction on terms there. Maybe is such a wishy washy word. Either decide to do something or not to do something, chica. That muddled, middle ground of indecision is mined with traps that will only sink you — meaning ME —  into a mea-culpa depression when faced with the reality that  I can’t even keep the maybe resolutions.

Whoever started this Make Resolutions baloney? I heard someone sometime in the past say it was an ancient civilization but they did it to make sure the gods made the wheat and barley grow so they could make beer to drink to forget their resolutions. Sounds like a very practical and good reason to make resolutions. But does that apply to this 21st century pre-mid-70 aged woman?  (I refuse to call myself mid 70 since I still have a couple of years to go before I hit that reality. Although one of my friends got me a gift for my 75th birthday this year. I refused to accept it and asked her to hold onto it for another two years.)

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a practical and good thing to step back from your life and assess what’s working and what’s not. And, then, make some adjustments and promises to right the wrongs The danger comes when there is an uneven negative load on that teeter-totter of your life so the idea of resolutely changing things seems entirely too overwhelming and, honestly, not worth the effort. And then, there is the reality, of all those other years of resolutions NOT kept. Last January, Sarah, my social-media-and-all-things-technical-guru came over and we created the new banner for this blog. I resolved to turn my life into a much more exciting place — Road Trips, Writing New Stories, Seeing the Ocean, Making a Change — alas, here I sit at the end of that year with none of those “resolutions” reached. I, like the majority of other people — 75% of folks do not keep resolutions after 30 days of making them — let another year slip by with these goals forgotten.

I could use the broken arm and resulting surgery as an excuse or the weeks of physio therapy, but in truth I could have done all of those things and would have been feeling very smug and probably a lot happier at the end of this year. Bur I didn’t. I think the reality is that when we put those words down on this banner, I didn’t really believe I could do any of them. There is the heart of broken resolutions. You have to believe and really, really want to do the thing. So I’ve decided not to call anything a resolution but to just try to be happier this year than ever before. To love better, to care for my friends and family better, to cook up a storm of good food and laugh when I trip in my efforts and end up where I am now.

Happy New Year, Folks.

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