New year, new me. Every time January first comes around, I head into the new year like Matt Damon on Mars. I usually make a list of resolutions, memorize them, recite them to every cashier that looks bored, and by the second week of January, I forget every single one. Sometimes I visit every gas station and café in the area asking each cashier if they remember any of my resolutions. But even if they do, I'm bound to forget them by the third week of January. Occasionally during the fourth week of January, one of my forgotten resolutions pops into my head and I follow through with it for a couple weeks.
This brings us to the second week of February, I believe. If I'm still following through with my resolution, I typically use the second and third week of February to humbly brag about sticking with my resolution. Last year, a professor asked me for an assignment that was due and, when I realized I didn't have it, I remembered that respecting due dates was one of my forgotten resolutions. I smiled at my professor and told her that respecting due dates was one of my forgotten resolutions, which I fully intended to follow through with after that point (a Monday in the third week of February to be specific). She smiled back and told me that I slightly resembled her great-grandfather. I made sure to tell her that resembling great-grandfathers was the resolution I had remembered in the fourth week of January, and she told me that she was proud. She was not only proud of the fact that I had followed through with that resolution, but also of the way I had mentioned it so humbly.
At that point, I jumped out of my chair, recalling that bragging more humbly was the third forgotten resolution. I told her this and she smiled, revealing her white teeth. Then, I smiled back at her, revealing my white teeth. Suddenly, I dropped my books on the floor, struck once again by a fourth forgotten resolution: remembering to clean my braces every night with the tiny brush. Just as I was picking up my things, however, I realized that that had been one of my resolutions for a different year. It was rather foolish of me to think that the resolution was from the current year; I hadn't had braces since middle school! So, I pulled out a piece of paper, subtracted one from four, and came to the conclusion that I had remembered only three resolutions, the fourth being a red herring.
Generally, I continue to carry out my resolutions through the end of February and all the way through the green month of March. But in the first week of April, or sometimes the second (I'm rather flexible), I have a dark night of the soul and question all of my resolutions. Most years, this transforms into a dark depression that lasts until the third week of May. It is in this week that I typically meet a girl who turns over my world and shifts my paradigms, at which point I start deriving all of my life's meaning from her instead of my three resolutions (four if you count the brace maintenance resolution, which I do not count).
It is normally not until the second week of July that I remember my real fourth resolution: to not, under any circumstance, allow a summer romance to supplant my dedication to the resolutions I haphazardly codified at the beginning of the year. Even though this is always one of my resolutions and I forget it every year without exception, it's not a problem because it is the second week of July and I am now up to four remembered resolutions out of the original six. You might be wondering, "If you typically remember four resolutions by the second week of July, when do you remember the last two?" Thanks for asking. Well, you see, I get one for my birthday, which is in the third week of September and one for Christmas, which is in the fourth week of December. The first four remembered resolutions, not counting the resolution that I misremembered, plus the two gifted resolutions leaves me with six resolutions.
Sometimes it's not about following through with your resolutions, but about the journey to find and remember them all. Though I only talked in detail about the second, third, and fourth week of January; the second and third weeks of February; the first two weeks of April; the third week of May; the second week of July; the third week of September; and the fourth week of December, searching for forgotten resolutions can happen in all the other weeks of the year too (for example, the first and fourth week of February; the last two weeks of April; the first, second, and fourth weeks of May, etc.). Sometimes it's not about following through with your resolutions, but about the journey to remember them all. Happy new year! Get searching.
