Today is New Year's Day, and I have made two resolutions. One is to nag my friends a bit less, but I'm not going to stop entirely because they do at times need to be kept in line. I will just try to do it more gently, I suppose. My other resolution is to start bringing elastic bands with me everywhere, and for the simple reason that when I go shopping and I am buying eggs, the cashier doesn't always have an elastic band to secure the carton, and I certainly don't want to end up carrying home with me an omelette in the raw. Especially given the relative difficulty of actually cooking it while on board the bus. I generally don't think of New Year's as a time for making resolutions, and have long baulked at the kind of unnecessary pressure that people often put themselves under to meet them, and usually end up failing dismally. Forgive us. We are not perfect.
But for me, it is also timing. Recently, I felt I was being a bit hard on one of my Colombian friends, and even admitted this to him. That was on Christmas Day, so since it was just a few days before the new year I thought, well, might as well make a resolution of it, but only because this is convenient timing. And I am not going to stop nagging him or other friends altogether, just lighten up a bit. Likewise with the elastic bands for my egg cartons. Just two days ago I was buying eggs and it happened that the cashier had only one rubber band left. So, those have become my two resolutions.
Carrying them out shouldn't be too difficult. I have already put three or four rubber bands in my reusable shopping bag that I carry folded up inside my knapsack, so they are going to be with me always. With my friends, it will be day by day, and right now a bit of a challenge, because I really want to kick a few asses belonging to people who ignored me this Christmas. On the other hand, it is not an easy day for a lot of people. I have already succeeding in making some people at church rather squeamish for not including me in any of their plans (unlike others i am alone at Christmas, so no, I don't think that I am making any unrealistic demands or unreasonable expectations, and it is just that people are a lot more selfish and less engaged with one another than they used to be and I still do not feel quite ready to let them off the hook. One "friend" was simply being as usual his normal insufferably selfish self and he is confined for a while to the bad friend box. Others I feel much more clement and forgiving towards.
Back to this business about making New Year resolutions. I think a lot of this comes out of the pathetic self-loathing that characterizes a lot of Canadians, and the obnoxious self-aggrandizement of many Americans, which to me is simply a mask that covers their own unique brand of self-loathing. I rather find myself visualizing a svelte, whippet thin and super fit dominatrix all decked out in form-hugging black leather (no spandex for this babe, only the very best!), wielding one terrifying whip and hollering while lashing everyone, "Perfection! We must have perfection! You're not good enough. You never were good enough. And you're never going to be good enough." (she cracks the whip). "Perfection!" (crack!) "Perfection!" (lash!) "Perfection!" (snap!) Are you starting to bleed yet, Gentle Reader? Good. Keep working at it. You're never going to get there. have fun! "Perfection!"
No comments:
Post a Comment