I don’t know about you, but most people’s holidays are stupid hard. For me, Christmas time finds me sneaking off to do sit-ups because my eating disorder kicks in when I’ve dared to eat a piece of pie. When I’m not doing that, I’m pondering whether I’d enjoy women’s prison when confronted by the latest alcoholic behavior of my family.
AND THEN, after all that, I’m supposed to make a resolution to do something I’ve failed at the entire previous year and then feel bad when I fail at it AGAIN? That’s bullshit.
It’s way too hard. I invariably start my new year by licking my wounds from the holidays and planning how to make a run for it. On the lam, never to be found!
The only resolutions I can remember even thinking about making have been to
1) tell only lies
and
2) pay only cash,
thus making myself untraceable.
I’ve always had escape fantasies. Once on a trip to England when I was 11, I saw my family walking down the street away from me and honestly considered running in the opposite direction. (Strangely, that fantasy always ends with me living with Iggy Pop.)
Even changing my name to my husband’s was my plan to throw people off my trail! It didn’t work. I guess inviting people to my wedding wasn’t a great strategy?
I’ve got my escape all planned out, too. It starts with me going missing on a “vacation” to Africa or Thailand. But after 46 years of scheming, I still haven’t done it.
Every year I stick around and dig back in. And I manage to do it without announcing it to everybody like people announce their New Year’s Resolutions. (That would just be rude. “Hey, after thinking a lot about it, I still haven’t abandoned this life. I know, heroic, right?”)
Year after year I consciously choose to be responsible for myself, the people I love, and whatever I’ve done, rather than escape by running away, drug addiction or suicide (suicide is on the rise).
THAT is resolution! Piling more on, like having to feel bad if I don’t lose some weight, is just insanity.
