I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed. I have not completed my Works-In-Progress, I quit practicing piano, and I failed to finish all twelve Free-Motion Quilting challenges by the end of the year. I have not loved my treadmill as I have loved my Godiva truffles, I never did organize those junk drawers, and I was not on time for anything...
Where did this "year in review" thing come from? You know, the annual blog posts where writers catalog their accomplishments for the year that has just ended and publicly confess to a year's worth of shortcomings and missed opportunities. Some of them read like confessions, but others are more like those Self Evaluations some people have to write in conjunction with their boss's Performance Evalutation. You know, open with your strengths, move on to briefly touch upon your screw-ups and discuss what you've learned from them, then finish strong with your biggest achievement and state your goals for the next 6 months or whatever. Blech!
But fast away the old year passes; hail the new, ye lads and lasses! 2012 is over and done, but 2013 is stretched out before us like a great, big, blank sheet of paper. The new year is fresh, clean, and limitless in its possibilities. You can do whatever you want with your paper. You can write any story, you can draw beautiful pictures, you can dream up amazing adventures or even redraw yourself as the person you have always wanted to be. Or you can take that blank sheet of paper, that fresh new year full of opportunity and possibility, and scrawl across the top with a Sharpie marker: "NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS for 2013: 1. I will exercise every day and lose 15 pounds. 2. I will reorganize the garage/closet/my office. 3. I will give up cigarettes/alcohol/chocolate/buying shoes. 4. I will internalize the obsessions and norms of my culture, believing them to be my own goals and desires, and I resolve to end this year as I have ended years past, feeling guilty and inadequate for my perceived shortcomings..."
Happy New Year, everyone! Don't waste your paper. ;-)
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