I’ve neve been all that big on new years resolutions. Year after year, there’s some “lose 10 pounds” thang on there. Something about writing. Yawn…Anyway, my resolutions (made sporadically over the years) have at best been half-baked, half-hearted, half-arsed. Half-arsed is probably the best way to look at it. Half-arsed-ly made, and – as the Irish would ay – I can’t be arsed to actually keep them.
Last year, pretty darned cagily, I decided to forego making any resolutions Instead, I declared intentions. No real, fake, or real fake resolve to do anything about them in sight. Just intentions. Not even the special intentions that Catholic school kids of my era prayed for. Jut plain old intentions.
Here’s what I had to say for myself, intention-wise, as of January 2018:
I’m not bothering with any resolutions this year, since I never manage to keep them. That said, I do intend to lose 10 pounds, unfreeze my frozen shoulder and, oh yeah, complete the novel that’s been noodling around for a while.
While I didn’t actually achieve an 100% grade on my intentions, I did somewhat okay.
Those 10 pounds. Didn’t happen. Whether it’s a resolution or an intention, I’m dropping this sucker from my list. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, well, I like my nightly little bowl of frozen yogurt. (I highly recommend Gifford’s of Maine Moose Tracks or Blackberry with Chocolate.) Plus, I truly believe that some of the weight that I didn’t lose is actually muscle build up from walking so much.
Two years ago, my sister gave me a Fitbit. I went well over a year without missing a 10K step day. Overall, I’m going to guess that I’ve now missed a total of 10 days. (Probably a couple fewer.) A month or so ago, I decided to stop driving myself (and, admittedly, others) nuts by obsessing about the daily 10K. Instead, I’m focused on averaging 10K a day by doing 70K per week. So if I have a 15K day and the next day I’m visiting someone, and don’t want to wear out their carpet pacing their living room, or if the weather outside is frightful, I’ve given myself permission to not bother to monitor my steps the next day. I can take the day off. As long as I get my 70K steps in per week, I’m good. My weekly take is generally higher than that, and at 81K per week (which is pretty much how I track), things work out to 5 miles per day.
Frozen. After another 6 months of PT (added to all the PT I’d done for the should in 2017) and 3 months of acupuncture, the shoulder in 2018 got marginally better. It’s easier to put stuff away on upper shelves, and put the quart of frozen yogurt into the microwave to soften it up a bit. But late in the year, I decided to see an orthopedic guy. I’d seen one the year before, and he was god-awful. He was an older fellow whose claim to fame was having operated on some long-retired Patriots. He looked at my x-ray and told me that my shoulder would never get better, and that I’d end up with surgery. Surgery would be absurd for the my frozen shoulder. So: Not. Gonna. Happen.
This time, I went to a different orthopedic guy who, as it turns out, went to grammar school and high school with my brother Tom. He ordered an MRI, rather than an Xray; identified a small tear; agreed that surgery would be absurd; and gave me a shot. The shot relieved some of the pain, but I’m not sure that, when it wears off, I’ll do it again. The pain wasn’t that bad to begin with.
Anyway, I keep working the shoulder at the gym. If it gets totally unfrozen, great. If not, it’s obviously something I can live with. It just ain’t all that bad.
Novel ideas. As for that novel, it’s not completed, but I’ve made some headway and have a lot more of it down on paper. The Sins Against Hope is about a (mostly) good priest who, for whatever reasons, stays “in” despite his doubts. As Dan Breen pushes 70 and gets exiled to a failing rural parish (for being too liberal), he really starts looking back on the pros and cons of his life choices. There. I’ve said it. I’m writing a novel about a priest.
Plans for 2019
No resolutions this year. No intentions, either. Just plans. I’m actually pretty good at planning, so maybe I’ll pull the things I plan off.
The Sins Against Hope is something that I plan on completely. It is likely to go absolutely nowhere, but I’ll be happy to complete it, my writing group will be happy to read more pieces of it, and I like my character Dan Breen a lot. (I guess at this point in my life, he’s the man in it.)
Pen pals. A few months ago, out of the clear blue, I got a lovely note from a writer friend who moved a few years ago to Florida. Since then, we’ve exchanged a few notes, and I can tell you that there’s nothing like getting a letter or note, placed in an envelope and delivered via USPS. I send out a fair number of greeting cards during the year - a few at Valentine’s Day, a lot for St. Patrick’s Day, a few at Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and a lot for Christmas. This year, I plan on writing more no-reason notes, and I hope I get a few in return.
Emails and texts are great, but there’s nothing like a personal note nestled in with the junk mail, pleas for donations, and bills.
Thoughts of Dog? I’ve got the girl name and the boy name picked out already. I’ve got a couple of leads on places where you can get a rescue Lab. The plan is for this to be the Year of the Dog.
Get out of town. I like going places, and in 2019, I already have a couple of places to go: Tucson in January, upstate New York in May for my niece Molly’s college graduation. I’m definitely going to NYC at least once. And, as my sister Trish, our friend Michele, and I are all observing milestone birthdays in 2019, we’re planning a trip. Somewhere TBD. So I’ll definitely be getting out of town.
That’s where things stand for now… Forget resolutions. Forget intentions. For 2019, the plan’s the thing.
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