New Year Resolutions

On the stroke of midnight - the temporal bridge between the New Year and the last - seated on an aged couch of fading floral patterns in a lounge room that has scantly changed over the course of 20 years, I resolved never to concoct a list of New Year resolutions again.

I reasoned that if one's desire to change for the better was to have any ounce of integrity, the birth of said desire, would not hinge on a trivial and rather artificial milestone in time. The only stimulus for change should be the realisation of the need for change and surely such a realisation can come at any point during the year - our flaws are not annual in their emergence. If only we were so fortunate.

Yet as I sat in contemplation of my aforementioned resolution (how ironic), I became increasingly wary of how time had left its subtle mark on everything in my surroundings, like the tide against a sandstone cliff, though their positions have remained unchanged for as long as I could remember. The chipped paint on the corners of the wall, the fading couch, the layer of dust on the antique frame that houses an old photograph of my youth long lost. Have I too been worn away by time? Have I become jaded and apathetic?

At this point, everything that was wrong in my life became all too clear, as if the clouds of doubt in my mind had been swept away by a torrent of confronting rain, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of vulnerability. The façade I had erected to convince myself that everything was OK;that everything was as I wanted it to be, shattered into a myriad of infinitesimal fragments, leaving only a feeling of discontent like a foul aftertaste. Fuck me dead; I needed to change. So much for my resolution.

New Year Resolutions

1. Treat my family better.
2. Keep in touch with friends.
3. Improve Law.
4. Be a good tutor.
5. Practice piano and guitar regularly.
6. Stay fit.
7. Read and write more.
8. End two year run (and counting) of bachelorhood.