The thing about the cult of New Year, New You is that I bet most of us were absolutely fine with the version of Me/You circa December 10th. Sure, a few not-ideal quirks but we are old, now, and have made peace with those things.
I find that a desperation for some sort of change, a longing for that Instagram word du jour, a “reset”, happens around now.
It’s the constant, inescapable lazing-about of the Christmas break, the siren call of fruit cake and stilton for lunch at 4pm, the dinners with friends who believe that dinner is served at 9pm. I used to believe that you could “do” Christmas without putting on half a stone but I recant that.
But mostly it’s my children at home all the time. It’s been weeks and weeks! The problem is not just that they are incapable of so much as making toast, it’s that they don’t even really understand that they are hungry until they are so starving, so crazed by low sugar that they can only think to spoon jam straight from the jar.
If they were left to cater for themselves for more than 12 hours they would be malnourished with no teeth. So I have to oversee what they are eating. This is annoying, boring and time-consuming because they turn their noses up at such Christmas delicacies as the cake-and-Stilton lunch and stuffing sandwiches dipped in gravy etc.
And don’t get me started on all the reward booze. Summer is hard work but Christmas is hard work on top of hard work. I have always believed that wine is my friend, (see not-ideal quirk in par 1), but around Christmas and New Year wine is not only my friend, it is the fifth emergency service, it is the scaffolding propping me up. And now I can’t even look a bottle of Beaujolais in the face. Pass the liver salts.
Every single surface in my house is covered with crap, my admin is nipping at my heels and my cuticles are drying up before my very eyes. I do not know how we have generated so much laundry. I still haven’t got rid of the Christmas tree. I fantasise about jogging only because it will buy me twenty minutes on my own.
I don’t need a new me! I just want the old one back.
How about you? What would the New You really look like? (Be realistic). Please leave a comment to amuse the group in the handy box below. First-time commenters don’t be shy! After all: New Year, New You.
Amish Warlord of the middle finger of Michigan. Horses for everyone!
My one and only resolution is to see the doctor about HRT.
The new me would be just like the old me, pre brain fog and aching joints.
That's it. Otherwise I'm pretty good and can cope with any of my other idiosyncrasies as I got to my late 40s and feel fine about them.