My Dissolving Resolve
It’s the time of year when local gyms are in high gear. Fat, carbs, and cholesterol are replaced with good intentions and green salad. Stock in companies that make pedometers and exercise equipment is likely doing well.
This is the time my late husband would have declared his New Year’s resolution: “I will not kill anyone this year.” He was pretty doggone certain he’d have no trouble honoring it for the entire twelve months. And he didn’t want to be a quitter.
He used to do a New Year’s activity with his high school students wherein they wrote down all the bad stuff from last year, then burnt their papers. To signify a fresh start. I don’t know if it helped the kids stick to their resolutions, but they liked setting things on fire. (My own kids loved their high school chemistry teacher who started the year by blowing up things. The first day of class started with a bang and he had their attention for the rest of the year.)
I understand the desire for the sense of a clean slate. An absolute do-over with determination to get it right this time. Whatever it is. Some of us struggle continually to make the good outweigh the bad. But my husband’s way made perfect sense, too. If you choose something you absolutely believe you can manage, you will not let yourself down. And to my knowledge, Kirk never did kill anybody.
I’m pretty sure I could manage Kirk’s New Year’s resolution, but I’m not one to take the easy way out. My inclination this year is to resolve to accept myself just the way I am. And that is truly a tough row to hoe.
In order to reach this goal, there are lots of little objectives involved: I will not belittle myself when I make a mistake. I will not denigrate my outfit, my hair, my cooking. I won’t second-guess every utterance. I will forgive myself for driving a van with an internal combustion engine at least until alternate transportation is made available and affordable (with readily accessible charging stations across the country if we’re going electric). I will not feel like a bad person because I can’t appropriately recycle the plastic packaging that coats almost every purchase I make.
I recently completed an online survey for somebody at the University of Arkansas who is studying the mobility of the elderly. Seemed like a good idea. I am elderly. And so far, I’m mobile.
I was rewarded with a Walmart gift card of unknown dollar amount that arrived in the mail. I tried to use my gift card the last time I went to the store, but the cashier had no idea how it worked. So the card sits in my wallet. If I toss it, I am throwing away plastic and money. That feels bad, indeed. (Why don’t they just send cash? Less waste and less confusion. And if, theoretically, anybody can use the card, mailing cash would be equally safe.)
Accepting myself, warts and all, might seem to some folks like a loser’s way out of committing to a real resolution. But then, some people might not suffer these difficulties as I do. And maybe it’s hard for them to not kill anybody.
Or maybe I should just vow to lose ten pounds, whether I need to or not. And tighten my abs, quads, biceps, pecs and glutes. Perhaps then I could firmly grip my sanity at those moments when humankind, itself, seems resolved to dissolve.