2010 is over but I can't stop writing it on everything I own.
Family Portrait; New Year
(Sean, Mom, and Madison)
My mother asked me if I had any pictures of myself I liked, that she might put on her Christmas cards. She has been, since our last family portrait six years ago, always at a loss when it comes to finding a picture for her Christmas card. Last year she cheated and corralled us all into a photo at Thanksgiving, one of the only times we were all together all year. Usually she ends up doing what she did the year before last - sending out Christmas cards featuring herself, her husband, and my sister.
I reminded my mom I'm not the sort to carry pictures of myself in my wallet or my hard-drive. "I don't have any pictures of myself, let alone pictures I like," I told her. My sister said, "This is a self-conscious problem." I agreed that I'm very conscious of myself. This year my mother cheated and took pictures of my brother and me from our facebook pages.
It is a heavy thing to be looking at the last paycheck of the year, comparing the Year To Date Net Pay figure with the ATM balance inquiry slip. I've been thinking back to last January and finding the old resolutions so long abandoned I can't list them. Nobody sets out to have a bumper year, the sort of year that in time-lapse would be made up of you in your tv chair, you at work, you sitting at this desk or that desk at school, you in bed, your face in the mirror in the morning and at night. I think that New Year's Resolutions are like buying lottery tickets anyway. It doesn't really matter if they come to anything. Every year is a bumper year.
This year I didn't save any money. This year I didn't read as much as I wanted to or work out as much as I wanted to and I still haven't left Michigan or my parent's house. This year I didn't go to the dentist but I did start getting allergy shots. This year I went to the casino for the first time and won $150 on the slots. Last week I did not win the Mega Millions lottery.
This year I was invited to play quizzo (a pub quiz tournament) on a team and I learned I love trivia. I am good at this sport at the same competitive level as everyone else, no better, no worse than most. No one can know everything. I'm best at literature and history and music and television. I've never seen Glee or the Jersey Shore. I've learned from the Scrabble and Boggle apps on my phone that "dor" and "xi" are words but I haven't learned what they mean.
This year I learned to play tennis and slowly became less terrible at it. This year I flew in a small two-passenger airplane. This year I flirted relentlessly with my 4-years-younger tennis instructor, starting as far as I can pinpoint it with my first application of acrylic nails. This year I rescinded my statement of intent to only be with women, only ever. This year I spent 8 weeks dating and 4 weeks breaking up with a guy named Julian, The Watchmaker. This semester my tennis instructor, Jesse, said he'd meant to approach me at school but he'd seen me walking with some guy and didn't want to interrupt. "Oh that guy? That was just my douche-bag lab partner," I said. This year I flattened two tires.
This year I played in a sort of scrimmage tennis tournament and I was terrible but I enjoyed it. I always feel gut-sick walking onto a court but by the time I walk out I'm energized and ecstatic. Mary, who lost 160 pounds in one year playing tennis every day brought her 21-year-old daughter Sam to the tournament. Sam gave me pointers and winked at me throughout the games and I gave her my phone number on a pizza box.
This semester I didn't have to write a paper called "Is There A God?" but I know what I would've said and I'm beginning to understand how much it hurts to say it. It's like I've been hobbling on a broken leg and the pain went unnoticed until I looked down. This year I started reading the Bible over. I read Hitchens and Dawkins and Darwin and fucking Narnia. I'm going to have to sever the bloody leg.
Next year I'll buy a car not much better than my current car, but newer, and I'll give my old one to my brother who is a salesman on commission and is never nervous. I'll play tennis more, and continue my current loose diet of not eating fast food, and packing bagged lunch for work. Maybe I'll be inspired and work at losing the stone I gained working and going to school. If my luck and work ethic holds I'll finally have my Associates degree this semester's end, at which point I can immediately begin the next level of schooling.
I'll go to the dentist. I'll drink more. I'll read more and more and more. I'll have my fake nails dissolved and begin the process of nursing my feeble nails. I'll learn to play the piano properly. I'll write a story or a poem and I'll show somebody. I'll write thank-you notes and letters. I'll use all the apps I've bought on my phone to take pictures of everyone I know and frame them up. I'll read more journals than two. I'll kiss somebody who likes me and who I'll still like after. I'll save up a few thousand dollars in case some big 4-year college will take me and I'll have to move myself out of my comfort zone to get there. I'll look back at this list next January and have things to cross off and things to add that I would never think now to want or aspire to. I'll probably win the Mega Millions tomorrow night.
This is so much to fill up into one year, but a year is so much time. I can't even remember this time last year.