I am not sure who decided the first day of the year should be a national holiday, but I am certainly glad of it. I am grateful This January 1, I spent sitting around my little brother’s kitchen table, and the topic of resolutions came up. My brother and I pretty much share a brain, so our goals for the year were similar. He wants to get back in the gym, while I want to lose weight. We both want to make some professional progress. We are both trying to quit bad habits and create good ones. Pretty standard stuff for New Year’s resolutions.

But then our spouses started talking, Turns out that neither of them believe in resolutions. They agreed that if they wanted to do something, they simply just did it. I looked at these two people, whom I love dearly, like they had tentacles growing from their foreheads. No yearly to do list? No mid-year check-ins? No starving yourself for the first six weeks of this year to lose the weight you gained in the last six weeks of the previous year? Complete hogwash?! They may as well have been speaking a foreign language.

New Year’s resolutions have been as much a part of my life as writing has been. When I was not writing poems, I was writing my goals for the next year. Sometimes I meet them. Many times I don’t. But every time i get to turn a calendar page, I feel like I’m turning over a new leaf.

I wish I had the spirit of my hubby and sister-in-law, who are not bound by their calendars, and who can simply will themselves into meeting goals…but much like childhood me playing video games, I require a reset button and January 1 provides that for me.

Here is to hoping 2018 finds me successfully crossing off everything on my list… And for those of you wandering through life list-lessly, may you, too, find success however you choose to define and measure it.

Mama Radford