“Ugh! This is so boring!” I exclaimed. Everyone in the coffee shop looked around to see what I was complaining about. “Just balancing my checkbook,” I said, waving my pen with the blandest of smiles, trying to put them at ease.
But it was all a lie. What I was actually laboring over was even worse than my chronically unbalanced checkbook. It was my sad, moth-eaten, perpetually un-checked-off list of New Year’s Resolutions.
“Lose weight,” it began. Yeah, not happening. “Exercise more.” Equally not. “Spend less, save more.” Just as bad as the first two. In fact, I might as well get the list laminated for all the good it ever does me. Then I could just scrub off the year and write the new one in at the top, with a grease pencil.
“Why do you even bother with that?” said a familiar voice. I looked up. My best friend was in the coffee shop too, and was reading my list over my shoulder. “May I join you? Or would I be a distraction?”
“Oh, please distract me! I don’t know why I do this. It just feels like something I should do, and if I don’t do it New Year’s Eve, I never will. But it never helps!”
“I know what you mean,” she said, sitting down. “Mine doesn’t help me much, either. Here, take a look.”
She pulled out a neat page of graph paper, annotated with dots and check-marks — but in the middle of it all was a clear list of resolutions.
“It’s from 2016,” she said.
“Eat more vegetables,” it started. “Return missing library books. Phone friends and family instead of emailing them. Spend less time on Facebook…”
“I wish this was my list, instead of yours,” I exclaimed. “I’ve done half of these things already, especially that one about Facebook”!
“And I could use this ‘exercise more’ as an excuse to renew my gym membership!” she told me.
“You know what we might do,” she said, mischief dawning on her face. I finished the sentence for her: “…we should trade lists!”
“Exactly!”
We swapped resolutions and walked out together.
I was so happy with this idea, I proposed it to my husband and two boys at dinner; the boys were home for the holidays.
“What do you say we exchange New Years’ resolutions?” I said to them.
There was a deafening silence. Finally my husband spoke up.
“Um, Judy — I think it’s possible that our sons might be making some resolutions about things they want to keep to themselves. Not everybody puts all their most personal thoughts in a column in the newspaper, you know.”
“That’s a fair point.” I thought for a minute. “You know, come to think of it, my resolutions have always been more of a wish-list than real resolutions, anyway. So let’s each put down four wishes that we have for the coming year, on separate slips of paper — and we’ll each pull them out of a hat until they’re gone.”
“Sounds more like an arts and crafts project,” grumbled one of the boys, but we all got busy, nevertheless.
We used my Halloween witch’s hat to put them all in — “the sorting hat!” — and I let everyone else go first. When we each had four wishes, we all started reading, and my husband and two boys smiled, then started to laugh.
“Looks like great minds all think alike!” my husband crowed.
“What are you talking about?” I said, crossly. “It’s not supposed to be funny!”
“Just look at your wishes,” he said.
The first said: “I wish Mom would move her boxes of papers out of the game room.” “I wish Mom would get the extra pots she never uses out of the kitchen,” said another. “I wish I could see the living room carpet someday without piles of books,” read a third.
“That’s enough; I can see there’s a pattern here,” I said. “In which case, I know you’ll all love my newest wish: that each of you helps me get rid of the clutter!”
And to all of you, I wish a Merry New Year and Happy Resolutions!
