The Sunday Memory Drawer - That "New Year" Thing

You've seen this photo before of me a long, long time ago at one of my parents' New Year's Eve parties in our basement.   You might recall the tale of me bartending at the age of 6 and getting most of my relatives drunk.   I'm not relating it again here.  After all, New Year's Eve has come and gone.

This is all about how we look forward.   And I look back at those attempts in the past to look forward.  That's redundant, I know.

Many folks use the marker of a new year to make changes in their lives. Frankly, that's an artificial notion.   You don't need a January 1 to make necessary changes to your world.   Let's face it.   If you're fat, July 27 is just as good a date to start that diet as January 1.

But, indeed, over the years, I have fallen into the same trap.  Invariably, I would be asked on New Year's Eve if I had any resolutions.    I would always answer the same way.

I need to lose some weight.

So, on January 1, 2016, I look in the mirror as I get out of the shower and I don't recognize the body that I see.   Who's that guy with the flat stomach?   As you may know, I lost fifty pounds in 2015 and did it in all the wrong ways.   So, my standard response to said resolution question is out the window.   

I find myself resolution-less this year.   Oh, there's a few things I need to do. Thanks to my condo owner raising the rent like a Democrat in the Senate, I likely will need to move sometime this year.   And we are taking a giant career leap forward by staging a production in a theater this February.   But, other than that...

I am resolution-less.   Okay, maybe there is one more.   To stay the hell out of St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.   But, beyond that...

I think of all the years I felt I needed to make changes in my life.  I recall asking my grandmother way back when if the new year would signal any changes for her.

"Oh, that's a lot of hooey."

And she was right.   But the traps still get us all.

I remember one holiday period where I felt particularly lonely after a nasty break-up.   Translation: there was nobody significant hanging onto my arm or my every word.   So, I did what everybody else does on January 2 after there was no one to kiss the night before.   

You try on-line dating.  

Indeed,  I have heard from folks who work at EHarmony that the first week of January is their busiest enrollment period.   So, there are those with lots of romantic resolutions.

Yeah, I did it, too.   And when you do it for all the wrong reasons, you get all the wrong results.

Women looking for stepfathers to handle their kids who are having trouble dealing with the divorce.

Women looking for somebody to kiss on more nights than New Year's Eve.   

Women who signed up because their best married friend dared them to do it.

I found nothing.

Then there was the year that I was totally fed up with my job in New York.   Time to knuckle down and give that rat bastard employer the heave-ho.   But, just because you're looking, it doesn't mean anybody else is.   Most of the time, you're still dealing with that rat bastard at the next year's Christmas party.

And then there was the year where my resolution was very short-term and sad at the same time.   I had come home from a quiet New Year's Eve gathering to learn that my hospitalized mother had suffered a heart attack and was on life support.

I resolved to find the strength to get through the next week or so.   And somehow I did.   

So, maybe when you consider the alternatives, resolution-less is good.   It sure feels that way.

Here's one resolution, however, that continues every year.

Be here on this blog site every day for a new adventure of something.

Dinner last night:   French dip panini.