As soon as Christmas is over, my daughter gets all excited about the next celebration that is New Year’s Eve. She loves partying, socialising, drinking champagne and dancing all night and I was wondering why she was all chirpy since she knew there wasn’t gonna be much about any of that this year, well, apart from a glass or two of champagne…. Somehow, though, she’ll always focus on the silver lining, no matter how flimsy.
So, she waltzed into the kitchen on Boxing Day, hardly able to contain her excitement: “Mummy, I can’t wait for New Year’s Eve!”
“Really??? Why??? There’s no big party this year, my darling!”
“I know, I know, I’m not talking about that, mummy! I’m talking about New Year delusions!”
“Say what??”
Now, it’s true that she often pleasantly (and occasionally unpleasantly ) surprises me with her vocabulary but I knew delusion wasn’t what she meant! Her speech impairment can be tricky sometimes especially when she’s excited and then frustrated that we don’t understand what she means!
I asked her to calm down, take a deep breath, slow down and repeat. (I already knew what she meant but I just wanted to make sure).
“You know Mummy, New Year delusions!!!” And I had confirmation as soon as she accompanied her speech with a writing movement of her hand.
“You mean New Year resolutions, love!!”
We started a new tradition a few years ago: at some point on New Year’s Eve, we each write down on a piece of paper all the things we are grateful for in the year that’s just passed, and then we read them out loud when we’re finished. It’s always fascinating to hear what’s been important for each member of the family, stuff some of us had forgotten, other stuff that some had found trivial. Then, on another piece of paper we write down what we would like to see happen in the new year, our resolutions I guess, and our hopes too, and we also read them out loud. That’s also always very interesting.
It’s sheer torture for her siblings and they are year in year out consistent in trying to get away with it all. And yet, Kathleen can’t wait and to be honest, she always comes up with events she’s thankful for that we’d all shamefully blanked out.
Anyway, “you mean New Year resolutions, darling, not delusions, although, you may have a point! Re-so-lu-tions!”
“Yes, that one!” she cried with glee, delighted I finally understood what she meant!
“New Year solutions!!”, she repeated…
“Errrrr… sure”, I replied . “That’s the one thing we can still do, darling!”
She actually may be uncannily insightful, don’t you think? After all, what do most people’s New Year resolutions turn into by the end of January if not either delusions or recycled solutions?….
I’ll start going to the gym regularly, I’ll stop eating junk food, I’ll start running, I’ll lose 10lbs, as if they were solutions to our problems, as if we didn’t know they’d blossom into full-blown delusions within a few weeks. As if they wouldn’t make top of our list again for next year’s re-solutions… They’re the macro Monday syndrome: I’ll start my diet on Monday, as if Monday was the magic day. I’ll start on January 1st, as if that was a magic date. Funny how the brain works. We know we are blatantly deceiving ourselves but we keep on hoping that this year will be different.
Well, I for one, wish to prove all our brains wrong this year, so let’s turn all our resolutions into the solutions we visualise!
Cheers!
Surfing The Human Mind... 