I've never given much consideration to the New Year. As with most quaint traditions I can certainly appreciate the charm of resolutions, but I've never been much for the holiday in general; too Bacchan for my quiet demeanor I suppose. For the last couple years Jess and I have greeted the coming year with a quiet dinner on the Upper West Side followed by a movie; strategically avoiding the maelstrom of Times Square and its drunken, tidal aftermath flooding the subways back to distant boroughs after the last bit of confetti and music have fallen from the cold air. We continued the tradition this year, though for me at least there was an anomaly; something markedly different from previous years; the feeling, or perhaps solely the hope, that this year truly would bring change and focus.
Its not to say that my life has not changed, especially in the last half-decade, but these changes at the time seemed less planned and more the spontaneous acts of astrological alignment. If I had been asked on December 31st, 2009, what the coming year held for me, I would certainly have said that I hoped it would bring marriage before the next new year (as I was already looking at rings), but I would have been reluctant to believe that one could propose, marry, honeymoon and move across the country to New York all before his 30th Birthday that September. Happily all of this transpired, and relatively smoothly given the chaos usually brought on by planning a wedding and a cross country move on their own, let alone in tandem.
This year, though, is different in that the resolutions I've set are more grandiose than those of previous years; more deliberate and purposeful. Maybe its because I'm tired of my job, weary of selling and not giving anything to the world and sick of tarting it up whenever someone asks what I do for a living, trying to make it sound more consequential than it ever could be. It is a living, but that is all. It could be also that in my mind I need to better myself if I want to feel deserving of my lovely wife, or maybe I've simply figured out what I'd like to do with my life, if only part time (though I wouldn't swear to it and I'd hate to jinx it). Perhaps its all of these things at once or none of them at all, but whatever the impetus, for the first time I feel like I have a focus for the upcoming year and I've made my resolutions with this in mind. I've shared my goals with Jess and she's professed her favor and support, though I won't mention them here as I feel its bad luck to share your resolutions with just anyone (one more of those quaint traditions I so adore); plus it invites unneeded pressure on an already tenuous endeavor.
If nothing else, I think this year I simply feel more adult than before; which I suppose had to happen sometime. It has certainly been a late revelation and a transformation I'm not sure is entirely complete, if ever it will be. I'm happy to say that many of the insecurities of my youth have since been resolved and I've somehow stumbled into a life, one I'm still sometimes unconvinced is my own, where I'm able to walk the quiet, brisk winter sidewalks of the Upper West Side with my beautiful and brilliant wife; dressed in suit and great-coat with peaked collar and my hair as askew as the wind and products will allow, and distinctly more comfortable with myself than in years before, or at least a bit more adept at masking my awkwardness, anyway. Also feeling somewhat "fictional", as Neil referred to his own mindset in a blog post on that same evening. Either way I feel more sure of my goal, less than sure of how to get there, but positive I'm moving in the right direction as no step is truer than the one that, at first, feels the most unsure. With that in mind, I wish you all the best for the new year and the resolve to follow uncertain steps as you pursue your own hopes.
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