As far as I can remember, I have never made New Year’s resolutions. Which means that unless the world has reversed on its axis and my crazypants memory is failing me, I have definitely never made New Year’s resolutions. However, my brain had trouble following the “focus only on what is happening in this room in this moment” portion of yoga last night and decided that it wanted to demonstrate some resolve this year. This is what it came up with as I sweated my guts out for 90 minutes.
The best laid plans
1. Oral hygiene. This is super misleading because I have impeccable oral hygiene. Seriously. I have never had a cavity in my entire life save that one tiny speck in one of my wisdom teeth that got pulled anyway so who cares about it? It doesn’t count! Specifically:
1a. Floss. I don’t even both lying to my dentist anymore. My last several visits have gone something like this, “Look, I could sit here and tell you that I’ll start flossing, but I won’t. I know I should, but I’m not going to and yes, we’re probably going to have this same conversation in six months.” Still, in spite of never flossing, I really do have good teeth. I know I should floss though. Thus, the super boring resolution. I’m not even going to quantify success here because honestly, even once would be a win.
1b. Start using the electric toothbrush that has been sitting in a box in my bathroom cupboard for about two years. I mean, if I’m gonna start flossing, why not?
2. Keep at least five houseplants alive this year. I took my Christmas tree down yesterday and realized why it makes me so sad every year. It’s because for one month – between my birthday and Christmas – there is another living thing in my home for me to take care of besides myself. The rest of the year, nothing – unless someone has bought me flowers. Even then, you just shove them in a vase and wait for them to die, which is pretty hard to screw up. I have never been able to keep plants alive, but I aim to change that this year. Three newly purchased plants are nervously awaiting their fate in my apartment.
3. Read 25 books this year. I have no excuse not to read more, period. I got a Nook for Christmas, which is added incentive. I’m also hopeful that more time with my nose in a book will mean less time trolling around on Facebook and other wastes of time.
You might have noticed that none of these resolutions are running-related. That is a very calculated move on my part. Despite the absolutely spectacular experience that was running a marathon, the training was abysmal. After struggling through it and struggling with it long after the training and the race ended, I’ve finally figured out that numbers and I just don’t mesh when it comes to running. When my pace gets slower, I beat myself up and when I have a target number of miles to hit in a week and I miss it, I feel like a monumental failure. None of that is conducive to the sense of well-being and general goodness that are truly the only reasons I run.
So, no hard and fast running resolutions for me. That is not to say that I don’t have running goals this year (sub-two hour half-marathon, I’m coming for you in February), but those are goals I’ve been chasing for awhile and my resolutions are all about new stuff.
Teeth. Plants. Books. I’ll letcha know how I did in 363 days.
Coming Up Lemon 