It means a new beginning, a new year, a new end to the date on the checks I write every month, at least 17 of which I will screw up before March, and probably one more in June or something, when I’m not paying attention. In popular reckoning, it’s a new decade (thanks to our base-10 system) even if, to the people that make calendars and know things about math and whatever, the new decade doesn’t start until next year.

Quite honestly?

I’m not that into it.

I don’t typically make resolutions on New Years – there’s nothing special about Jan 1 that makes resolutions more likely to stick. In fact, in my experience, they’re /less/ likely to stick, since I come up with them arbitrarily to fulfill the need to have /something/ to say to the ubiquitous “so what’s your resolution for the new year?” question.

I refuse to make resolutions like “I will eat healthier” or “I will lose weight”. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with those kind of resolution, but promises to better myself made in January – when I am inevitably in a mental lull and usually struggling against cold/damp induced pain flares – just aren’t a good idea for me. And really? I eat very well, and am at a healthy weight. I’m not the buff 19 year old martial-arts freak I was in college… but I also didn’t have to worry about overdoing it and not being able to walk/function the next day back then (and I do eat a whole lot better now than I did then).

So I don’t really do the resolution thing.

I’m not the kind of person that can pick one thing and do it for an extended period of time and be happy. I “binge” on projects, for lack of a better term. I get REALLY into something, and then kinda fizzle out after a few months. If it’s going to stand the test of time, I’ll go back to it (like letter writing and pen collecting and making music and writing), but frequently I flit from project to project – and I’m usually pretty happy that way.

I could make resolutions about blogging more here (where my subject matter isn’t as limited), or about writing more – both collaborative and independently – or about keeping up with friends and finding new penpals and reading more books and not spending all my money on pens and paper, and drawing mandalas and keeping myself disciplined about spiritual and meditative things (and I think you get the idea) but… well, I don’t know that I’d keep any of them, and I don’t know that making them would do any good towards keeping them anyway.

As such, since it’s new years and apparently this is what I’m expected to do (even if I can rant about how new year’s resolutions kinda make me want to poke myself in the eye) I think I’ll make the following resolution:

I will do the things I love, focus on the people that matter, and spend my time on the things I know I will continue to be interested in.

It’s not about pens or writing or games or finding a job or writing a book or blogging or … really anything. But it works, I think, for one addled writer in Texas – or at least I hope it will.

And for everyone who reads this blog (or my other blog) I hope the following, in the words of Someone Famous, who has no idea who I am, but who has an undeniable way with words.

…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

- Neil Gaiman

The kind of pouring that it does in Houston in January, where it’s foggy and windy, not really cold, but a driving, drenching, lasts all day kind of rain.

Normally that wouldn’t bother me so much, but two years ago today, I got married – and I wasn’t really looking forward to a white wedding dress in the rain and mud. But, I couldn’t exactly control the weather, and it wasn’t cold, so I couldn’t complain (just the weekend before it’d been 30 degrees, so complaining about 65 seemed rather silly, esp for January). I got up, got dressed, and went down to eat breakfast with my family before heading off to the whirlwind that is being the bride in a large family style church wedding in Texas.

At breakfast, I ran into my grandparents – my grandfather was the officiant in our wedding. Nobody had mentioned the weather – and there were probably 15 of us in the restaurant. It was, in a way, like the elephant nobody wanted to mention. Nobody, that is, except my PopPop, who has never had a shy moment in his life (I don’t think).  Anyway, he must’ve noticed the elephant and took it head on.

He looked over at me, as I’m three spoons deep into my oatmeal and yoghurt and fruit, and said “You know you’re not allowed to worry about the weather right?” I looked back, puzzled, at the grinning, white haired man who I’d call “impish” if he didn’t have quite so much presence when he wanted to (Italian grandpas are like that sometimes).

“Well, you see, I took it up with Management, and they’ve assured me that it will be sunny by 2 o’clock.” He pointed up at the ceiling, winking at me. We all laughed, but it warmed my overwhelmed heart to think of him having such a conversation with “Management” (his faith has always astounded me, but I suppose thats how ministers are) about the rain on his eldest granddaughter’s wedding day.

After breakfast, I started the whirlwind. Hair done, back up on the 18th floor my best friend’s little sister was doing our make up while we picked at some turkey sandwiches and sipped ginger ale through straws so we wouldn’t muss our lipstick. We had a big suite, my parents and I, with a large “meeting room” in between – it was really convenient, since there were never fewer than 12 people in the two rooms combined.  IN and out, in and out – who called the florist, did someone call the reception manager lady back about the cake, around and around.

And then – around 1:30, just as we were getting the last of our things together to make the short trip over to the church, someone else came in.

“You should open the curtains.”

I raised an eyebrow and opened them.  And sure enough, out over the Houston skyscape, drenched with the morning’s rain, the sun crept out.  Ok maybe crept is an understatement.  I squinted into the light, shading my eyes.

And from somewhere in one of the other rooms, my grandfather’s voice floated in, chuckling. “I told you, I took it up with Management.”

The weather eventually brightened so much that not only was the church bathed in multicolored light from the stained glass, but in the downtime between the ceremony and the reception, our photographer winged us a photoshoot in Hermann Park – and captured what would become my favorite pictures of the entire day. (Including one of me walking over traintracks in my chapel length train… with my dress held up about my knees and crinoline spewing out around everywhere.) The eventual high for the day was 74.  On the 27th of January.