New Year's Resolutions - High Or Otherwise

Happy New Year.

I'll start by nagging about celebrating safely. This does not mean encasing your champagne bottle with a condom. A taxi is a hell of a lot cheaper than having your ass sued off - and yes, it can and does happen all the time. Crashing on a sofa is more comfortable than waking up in the tank and that embarrassing trip to court later on, or thumbing it in the freezing cold of winter because you lost your licence and your car is impounded. Nuff said.

On to 2012. Several life-evolving events have taken place recently. Both involved family members, one young, one old. Those were in addition to the toxic stress levels of things happening within three feet of me at any time. I completed school and managed to graduate at the top of, not just my class, but the entire college (kudos for the menopausal fat broad!) and actually land TWO jobs in my field. I'm still living in a construction zone and hope that the next floor quotation will be the last before we start ripping out broadloom. All in all, I have dubbed 2012 officially "The Year Of The Change."

I resolve to begin Change. I do not resolve to lose weight, save money, be kinder to the environment or pay more attention to my health - they all go before me without saying. They are not part of Change but a daily on-going battle. None of which will ever happen overnight. The same goes for world peace, curing life-threatening diseases or giving up chocolate.

I will start with small Change - literally, like emptying my wallet once a week and portioning out my pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies and twoonies (which I think should be spelled 'toonies) into individual jars and tins. I did that for the first time a number of years ago and find that by RRSP deadline, I have a tidy sum I didn't have to scramble for to deposit into my fund.

And speaking of retirement...my mother-in-law, who will be 91 in March, finally resolved to go into a nursing home. It has been rather an emotional ordeal for all of us as, at first, she didn't really want to go, and although no one could make her, common sense prevailed. Not to mention that her two main caregivers both sustained fractures within a week of each other and that left no one to take are of MIL. She lived in a small, French-speaking, fishing village in northeastern New Brunswick, population about 1200. They all know her. That is, they all know her personality and assisted-living needs. Without malace, I state simply that she is extremely hard to get along with. She is a strong personality and very demanding in what she wants. Although her body is failing, mentally she is sharp as a razor. Nothing gets by this old broad! I only hope I will be as stubborn and well-grounded if/when I reach that age. Realizing that we could not longer find someone to drive Miss Daisy, my sister-in-law stepped in and helped to relocate MIL into a senior's facility in Fredericton. For the bargain basement price of $4000 a month, mother gets the best of care. For that price, she should have six Nubian slaves carry her around on a litter. The government pays about half. Those of us planning to retire within the next 10-20 years, take note. This is an average cost. Take the increasing ratio of aging Canadians to available facilities, inflation and a government who are merely serving drinks on the Titanic and by the time I need accommodation in this type of facility, I'll be lucky to get space on an ice flow. I may laugh now but I am seriously considering getting a quote on retrofitting my house with ramps, grab bars and a lifetime supply of supplemental oxygen.

Which brings me to my next Change initiation. A younger member of my family recently experienced a health speed-bump. I am happy to report that this person, whose identity and confidence is sacred, is none the worse for wear. However it has made me stop and think - very hard - about the next half of my life and reflect on all the things I said I would do before I got here. Most of all I think about all those things I haven't done. Yes - I've travelled, I've written, I've loved - not enough of any of them to my satisfaction, but to the extent that it is more than most people I know. Having no children of my own, I will leave only the memory of myself to those dear to me, and a few ISBN's in the Library of Congress. I therefore resolve to finish at least one book this year. I also resolve to begin planning my next travel adventure. I want to go to Ireland, the land of my ancestors. I want to find out what makes me part of every other little red-headed, Guinness-drinking, battle-ready punt with a sometimes crappy attitude. It's in my blood and I therefore claim the God-given right to stagger from pub to pub in the Temple Bar area and puke in the river Liffy. I can quote, ver batum, every line in "The Quiet Man." My great-grandmother came from the south of Ireland and spoke a dialect called Lilt. I believe whole-heartedly that a piece of me is still there.

I want to see London because it's old and, well, a fortune-teller once said I had an old soul. It must be true because I am constantly fascinated by castles, museums and drive my hubby crazy with re-runs of Jane Austen movies. I pant at the mere thought of Season 2 of "Downton Abby." I 'get' British humour. I'll finish the tour in Scotland, because there's scotch. I will tour a scotch distillery or two, (or three, four, five, six...) and attend a scotch nosing, or - well, why repeat the obvious. I do get chills when I hear the pipes. I've never met a haggis I didn't like. And also because ancestors on my mother's side were born there. I have old sepia-toned pictures of stalwart-looking women whose foreheads and no-nonsense noses I see every time I look in a mirror.

I want to see Paris because everyone I have ever known who has gone there has been changed by it. I want to walk thousand year old streets, be rudely snapped at by its citizens and have a bistro breakfast of cafe and a butter croissant before touring the Louvre. I want to tour the outskirts of the city where farmer's fields were once muddy trenches that harboured battle-weary soldiers and wonder from which whorehouse my great-grandfather caught syphillis - seriously. (Treated 3 times during the Great War, I'm surprised he had any time to fight the Huns!) And because I'm into Change, it's going on my bucket list.

I spent Christmas with my mother, who is heading back to the cutting table for joint replacement no. 3. Therefore I'm doing all the above soon before my own body decides to rebel in ways it can never recover. And smoothly this takes me to the next Change...

Yes, I do intend to incorporate better health practices. I want the stamina it will take to fulfill my dreams of travelling. I will put away a few extra dollars any way I can so I can afford to take myself where my heart desires. I will keep writing as long as my brain can function to put words on paper (or the screen) in hopes that some hundred years or so from now, some student or reader will be moved by something I've written and be curious enough about the author to find out if any of those promises she made to herself were the result of the Changes she wrote about on that New Year's Eve of 2011.

Have a Happy and Prosperous 2012 and may your own Changes start something wonderful!