Un-Resolutions

Number 1. I will take a rain-check.

Niya lifted her right eyebrow, making sure she had heard her grandma correctly. The petite, silver-haired woman continued speaking dreamily, her dainty, crinkly hands holding an aged journal, open on a page with fading, but still beautiful handwriting. The afternoon sun sneaked its rays onto the duo — showing itself, making it clear this was not just a party of two — and fell directly on the words “New Year Resolutions”. 

It was not a conversation. Niya knew it was a dictation. The once robust woman’s old journals were crumbling down and she’d said she would like to preserve some of her entries from the previous years. So Niya had bought a new, leatherbound journal. Every time she visited grandma, the two women sat side by side, Niya’s pen closing the widening chasm of dwindling time by writing what was dictated, what was worthy of being safeguarded. 

Today, she was re-writing some of her New Year's resolutions from fifty years ago — the year grandma had turned thirty. It was one of those things that Niya knew for certain but could not imagine — her grandma ever being young like her. How she would like to travel back and spend a few days in the company of the younger Sheila Jaithra, the woman who would be wizened with time, made more elegant in both beauty and spirit, notwithstanding the wrinkles and cracks and depletions of good things in her blood and bones. Grandma started to speak again and Niya brought the tip of her purple pen back to the smooth ivory page and continued writing.

It is just a rain-check, not to be considered a forever refusal. Just a polite decline for the moment. I promise I will continue listening to your problems and feeling your feelings. We both know I am quite good at it. I am here for you. It’s just that sometimes my head hurts, my soul feels heavy. 

I will put things in order, put a smile on the faces of those that come my way. I will have ready the reasons for the purpose of existence and can wriggle you out of your crises. But today, my mind is weary, my thoughts unwieldy. 

I can talk about the weather and the weekend, but in the wee hours of the year, I realize that small talk has become an agony. My eyelids are foggy, my brain is droopy. Can I take a rain check please? 

One day I will stand up like old times, run the long race, go the extra mile. But today, my bones are filled with aches. My heart and spirit too. I am tired. Let me rest my head a while. I will take a rain check, at least for this moment, perhaps for the year. 

Grandma pushed her small body back towards the headrest of the recliner and closed her eyes. Niya reached out to her and adjusted the plush throw on her legs, unable to resist sneaking a glance at the musty page in her lap. Niya had a suspicious feeling that what she had just written was not the same as what Grandma was reading from. Sensing Niya’s gaze, she lifted a corner of her lips and said, “Number 2.”

Number 2. I shall wear the mulberry satin blazer.

“Oooh, that sounds nice, grandma! Do you still have the blazer from such a long time ago?” Grandma fidgeted with the page. “I’m talking about the mulberry one, the one with the notch-collar and three-quarter sleeves. The special one,” she whispered with a beam. Niya looked confused. Occasionally, time and memory played tricks with grandma. Was it one of those moments?

I shall wear the mulberry satin blazer that has been waiting endlessly for my beautiful body to flaunt it. I will not postpone it for some special occasion. There will be no gilded invitations sent my way to announce that the time had finally come to adorn things of beauty. Sacrifices are overrated anyway.

There she was! Her spunky old lady shining through. Even the sun shifted a little, as if straightening itself to salute a stalwart. “Niya, you and I are the same size, are we not?” It was strange, but true. And the old soul that Niya was, she loved trying out grandma’s things all the time. But before Niya could answer, grandma was moving on to the next resolution already.

Number 3. I will feel the sore spots in my soul. I will not wash over them, will not use neglect as a salve, and will not let them fester. 

I am often cheerful, but not every day. Some days, I am sad. I will let myself be. I will not force myself in the driver’s seat and navigate desperately in search of rainbows. I will just stay in the passenger’s seat. I will just be here for the ride this year. Watch me lingering, listening, laying.

I am exhausted from trying to manage. Manage me, manage you, manage us. Manage appearances, manage social obligations. Manage my feelings, manage your problems. Not this year. Can I just not manage, not plan, not think for a while? I am exhausted. Maybe some other year. Maybe. Maybe not.

“You wrote this when you were thirty?” Niya asked unbelievingly, putting her pen down and stretching her fingers. Niya was twenty eight herself and was not sure if she was wise enough to craft a New Year’s resolution like this. She was still grappling over the usual things that twenty-eight-year-olds make as resolutions, like whether it would be a Keto diet or an intermittent one, which fitness classes would be a good fit into her tight schedule, and how to increase her income so she could travel to her wish-listed landmarks.

Grandma reached out to take her hand and glided her papery fingers over the rose pink ring on Niya’s index finger. “My beautiful Niya,” grandma whispered. Without warning, the back of Niya’s eyes prickled. She knew grandma was being monitored for health issues, and it suddenly dawned on her that there would likely be a portion of her life that Niya would be spending without this beloved person who had made her stronger even when her own strength was flickering out. How much had it taken out of her to always put others before herself? Was that what she’d implied by ‘taking a rain-check’ and ‘being exhausted’? Niya covered the delicate fingers with her own hand and gave her a kiss. “The attendant will be here shortly. Let’s get today’s work done.” Niya nodded with a smile and picked up her pen again, discreetly rubbing the back of her hand over the eye that threatened to spill over.

Number 4. Drink plenty of water.

There might not be plenty of it on the planet, but we have no plan(et) B. I will remember to thank the Earth for sharing its water with me.

Wait, that was Niya’s phrasing! It was something Niya always said about plan(et) B. She had read it somewhere and it had stuck with her. But her grandmother had written it fifty years ago? Or had she just made this up right now using Niya’s preferred words? She stole a glance at grandma who was looking out through the window sedately, while the weakening sunshine nuzzled playfully against her face. 

“Time is of the essence, my dear.” Niya was about to write these words, but realized that grandma was snapping her golden fingers and breaking Niya’s own reverie, urging her to quicken the pace.

Number 5. Catch it when it is happening, or it will pass you by.

The sun, it just is. Folding, unfolding the spectrum of radiance, like a Chinese silk fan. Sometimes hiding things, like darkness. Sometimes hidden, like behind the clouds. But it just is, the sun. 

The wind, it just is. Perhaps blowing over fields, perhaps still as a corpse. Storming in one moment, making us breathless; wrapping the world in a gentle, peaceful breeze the next. But it just is, the wind.

I could choose to see this as a big deal, noticing the elements that just are, feeling what is untouchable, touching what is possible.

Or I could choose to remain unstirred and insouciant, while they touch me, feel me, pass me by. For they just are.

Niya stopped and gave her a steady look. “Grandma,” her voice was barely a whisper. “What a beautiful thought to have. Even if it was not a resolution that lasted for the whole year, just having this thought when you had it, must have been so lovely. I am so glad I got to hear it.” “That’s the beauty of thoughts, Niya. They are there for the beckoning whenever you want them. And you can choose which kind. No matter where you live, what you are doing, who you are with. The thoughts are your own. Here’s another one, let’s go.”

Number 6. Let go of those goals that are too straining, too demanding, too draining. 

“Are we making goals or letting go of goals now,” Niya wondered, twisting the pen between her fingers, holding her guns for what would come next.

Every year, every week, every day, my life is full of plans. Plans to improve myself, the world, others around me. Plans to earn more, help more, achieve more. Plans that I think will help me live a more productive, meaningful life, but in reality, end up squeezing every drop of life out of me. I resolve to stop drowning and will swim up to feel, breathe and enjoy more. I will bring joy back to life.

Niya suddenly realized that grandma was not reading or dictating. This time the sneaky little woman was not even pretending to look into the journal. She was looking directly at her granddaughter as she spoke. Niya knew it! Were the other goals spontaneous too? Did grandma not want to preserve her ebbing journal entries then? Was she just making new goals for the coming year? Why not simply say so?

Perceiving her queries, grandma’s face softened. The sunlight was now dappling through the edges of the window and threatening to leave dark shadows any minute. Her bony finger pointed at the coffee stain coloured pages in her lap, as she announced, “This is a boatload of bullshit.” Taken aback — both by the language as well as the rebellious act — Niya blinked her eyes and stared. With a taut chin now, grandma shut the old journal closed with both her hands and exclaimed, “Fifty years ago, I was making terrible goals. You want to know some of the actual things it says here? Well, in essence, it says, stop eating, stop watching movies and reading books (waste of time I used to call it, for heavens’ sake), stop having fun. I might as well have put myself in a jail cell! How did I allow myself to live in so much stress? I didn’t give myself permission to breathe. Each breath I took had to earn its right of way. My colossal calendar encroached upon every inch of my waking and sleeping hours. My insides hurt. I lived only to ‘accomplish something’. Taking a break was like dying, in my dictionary, at the time.” 

Niya’s face flushed red. Weren’t her intended resolutions sort of in the same vein? Diet plans, being in shape, doing more, being more. As if she wasn’t enough. As if she didn’t have enough, or do enough already? Dammit. Grandma’s rebellion was contagious. Niya felt herself straightening her body and resolving she would make better resolutions. She looked down at her neat penmanship. These were the goals she needed, everyone needed…

“Niya, what we have written today is the opposite of what I once wrote in this strenuously ambitious journal. Even reading this was exhausting me.” Grandma put down the frayed diary and looked away. “These should not be anyone’s resolutions. Phht.” 

“So,” Niya ventured cautiously, palming the new pages in her own lap, “let’s call these Un-Resolutions.” She stroked the purple ink. Wheels turned in Niya’s head and aligned perfectly in cogs. “You wrote these for me, didn’t you?” 

“You can write your own too. And these are not permanent etchings. Allow yourself to be flexible.” Grandma was studying her. “It would please me very much if you gave these a sincere try, so that when you look back fifty years later, you can feel proud of your decisions. Fulfilled. Not dissatisfied and disappointed in yourself.” As the sunlight took a final bow, landing a spotlight near the old lady’s feet, grandma sat back triumphantly and heaved a big sigh. 

Niya’s phone pinged on the ottoman close to her. She glanced to see a message from her dad on Whatsapp. He had uploaded a medical report. Niya clicked on it and skimmed her eyes to the bottom where anything would make sense. “... Sheila Jaithra has a prognosis of about 1 month.”

Clutching the evil-eye pendant on her chest, Niya looked up indignantly at her sweet old girl, not holding back the hot streams from her eyes this time. But grandma had an easy smile on her entranced face — almost victorious. Like her work here was done. “Noooo, grandma, no,” Niya sobbed. 

“I already knew, my beautiful. We all know it, don’t we? But we forget.” Her eighty year old eyes, which belied her age, focussed on something distant. “Forget what, grandma?” Sheila Jaithra sat up straight and looked right at her grand-daughter. “Write, Niya. Number 7. I will remember that it all passes.”

Number 7. I will remember that it all passes. 

“And Niya, buy yourself a nice travel mug this year. Who are we kidding? How are you to accomplish any of the above things without warm coffee?” Grandma was chuckling, as Niya sputtered a grin through the tears draining the mascara off her eyes.  

Number 8. Buy a nice travel mug to keep the coffee warm.