Resolutely irresolute. (Or is the other way around?)

I really have no idea what’s so magical about New Year’s Day that makes so many of us want to make resolutions that start there and then.

Come on, I could have started losing those extra 10 pounds on December 30th. And how about that novel – the one with all the disparate chapters just sitting around waiting to get stitched together? Couldn’t I have started in on that months ago?

But yesterday was January 1st, and, since that was a Sunday, today is, effectively New Year’s Day, when I swear I’ll walk 5 miles and have a spoonful of yogurt for lunch, then come home and start in earnest on The Sins Against Hope (working title).

I don’t have a great track record of making and/or keeping resolutions, of the New Year or other variety.

That said, there’s one I’ve been keeping of late. That’s the one about not watching MSNBC for 4.5 hours per night. Since the election, I have watched exactly one hour of MSNBC, the Rachel Maddow Show election week when Elizabeth Warren was on. And I wouldn’t have watched that if a friend hadn’t texted me about it. I think I’m sticking to this one. Maybe I’ll start watching a bit, but I seem to not make myself as crazy if I’m reading the New York Times or and Washington Post as I do when I’m watching pundits punditting. Plus I now have Netflix, so there’s always something to distract me.

If I look back on other years when I made (and blogged about) resolutions, I do see that weight loss (2011, 2012) is a recurring theme. Only those years, it was 5 pounds I was going to lose. Didn’t happen quite that way. I managed to double up, so now I’ve got to double down and go for 10 big ones. Maybe this year…

In 2012, I was going to fix the lock to the upstairs bathroom and paint the bedroom. For the obvious reason that, in 2012, my husband was being treated for the cancer that winded up killing him in 2014, neither of those things happened that year.

But they did happen in 2015, when I reno’d our condo.

In both 2011 and 2012, I was going to start using the library more often. Which I did. Until my husband became sicker, and then the Boston Public Library did its major reno, and they shoved the fiction section into the bowels and depleted their stock. Their major reno is complete, but I haven’t been back. It just looks too glam and glitzy, now that it’s focused on something other than checking books out. I will be back at some point, but I have a delicious backlog of book-books and Kindles to wade through here.

In 2011, I was going to stop reading comments online. In 2012, I was going to spend less time on the Huffington Post. I’m still moth-to-flame with comments. Seems as if I like making my brain explode. But I will note that I’ve finally begun weaning myself from Huff Po. I’ll take a peek, just to see what’s up with the headlines. But mostly I’m avoiding it almost as much as I’m avoiding MSNBC. I’m sure I’ll be turning on if there’s something interesting going on, like an impeachment, but, for now, this way be sanity.

In 2012, I was going to redo our raggedy, ancient wills. Of necessity, that one got done. Now, I’m finally doing it again. Just need to read the fine print and sign, and I’m good to go. (For good.)

In 2011, I was going to write more fiction. Thanks to having joined a wonderful writing group in 2014, after Jim died, I am doing that, mostly spending time on stories that will get turned into Sins. (See above.) This will likely go nowhere, but I find it entertaining. So there.

Anyway, making a resolution and thinking there’s something magical about New Year’s Day is nothing more than magical thinking.

Still…

Maybe this IS the year for the 5 10 pounds, for the novel, for throwing out all the old laptops…

Happy New Year’s Resolutions to you. May 2017 be full of joy and good health.

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Here I am “Resolute This Time and I Mean It” in 2012, and weighing in in 2011 with “You Say You Want a Resolution”.