New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions

===========

Midnight is approaching, today is the very last day of December .

For the last seventy years of my busy and eventful life, I have made the very same resolution, year after year...I started that routine when WW2 was over, it was over for me, anyway, not for many other young girls in other countries. This was a time when finally life appeared to become more manageable for most young people of my generation. I was eighteen.

Since that time, every year I go through the very same system of rules while my fellow humans are singing "Auld Lang Syne". Nobody around me has ever figured out that I am making a very secret solemn promise to myself ...I try to plan for the 365 days ahead of me, always the very same undertaking that is supposed to make my future the very best that it can be.

Here is my yearly resolution: For the coming brand new year, I promise to try keeping myself alive and to continue looking after my health. I understand that accidents will happen, that some unexpected deities are waiting to change our life's directions. These we cannot very well modify. By keeping myself healthy and mobile I can also hope to help others,

Since I have a strong belief that much of our activities, much of what we do and whatever we put in our mouth, will determine our well being, I try to modify my diet, keep my body healthy with frequent exercising at the gym and keeping my brain working. I also try to avoid stress and think altogether positive about the world around me.

You may think I am NOT making it very demanding on myself. My readers might feel that this is a list of effortless determinations. Wrong!! It sounds so easy to do but I yet have to achieve the whole 365 days without most of my plan falling apart before Valentines' day.

Every year the first week of January is very easy to negotiate. With great enthusiasm I successfully cut down on my sugar consumption, I easily turn away from Dairy, become almost a vegan, abstain from gazing at chocolate and almost follow the experts' advise of drinking more water. I also get up very early in the morning and start working at something, anything to keep myself moving. Then I try to walk every day, to swim regularly, start many projects to keep my life interesting.

But, guess what: "The spirit may be strong but the flesh is weak", my grandpa 's words!

I am going on 89 and I have decided that for the very first time in seventy years, my resolute determination has preceded its expiration date. I should make NO New Year's Resolution this last day of December 2018. I am tired of it and am walking down a new avenue for life.. I have had enough. While touching wood, under my desk, and keeping my fingers crossed, :) I remind myself that I have been very fortunate not to have a heart attack nor a stroke. I can walk, even jog a little, I do not even wear diapers, yet.

I was declared three years ago as being with absolutely no trace of cancer, yet I came from a vulnerable family stock. I do not need a hearing aid, am not on medications but take vitamins when I feel like I really should. A moral obligation.

Tonight, Roger, my friendly neighbor, brought me a beautiful chocolate cake that his sister made yesterday when he visited her in New York city...I am going to eat a big piece at midnight.

My sweet Veteran friendly tenant wants to treat me to a restaurant meal tomorrow, I could very well accept. I might even order french fries. I usually eat those only twice a year. A hamburger might be good for me for a change.

Tomorrow I will rise early, make my coffee, then return to bed with my cup, another piece of that delicious chocolate cake and a quarter piece of guilt. Last time I had coffee in bed, I had just given birth to my last child, in February 1962!

New year's planning may have kept me regimented for a very short time every January and it might have made me watch to correct some of my short comings a little bit for the rest of the year but the said design was certainly not stamped in gold. Without being a glutton, I want to eat an ice cream cone now and then and stop those inefficient new year's testimonials. I will enjoy pizza and red wine with my friends and ...a big piece of chocolate cake.

This is my 2019 New Year's Resolution.