Madeline
“This year will be different,” Jessica said to herself. She sat perched on a stool at the kitchen island, her gaze fixed on the yellow legal pad in front of her. She twirled a lock of her blond hair with her right hand and a blue ballpoint pen in her left hand. She was a lefty which meant avoiding spiral bound notebooks at all costs.
She tapped the pen on the pad a few times, leaving three blue dots on the page, before writing at the top of the page in capital letters:
MY 2023 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
Jessica had always set up goals for the new year, but never felt the motivation enough to follow through with them. This year would be different, not only would she set the goals, she would stick to them.
1. Go to the gym every morning before work.
She looked at this statement and thought better of it:
1.Go to the gym every morning before work day after work.
She gave a single nod in approval and continued.
2. Don’t eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby every night before bed.
Jessica liked that one. That was one she could do…. Most of the time. She edited this one as well. If she was going to stick to her resolutions, she should be as clear as possible.
2. Don’t eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby every most nights before bed.
She squeezed the ‘s’ in there and wrote ‘most’ above every. That’s okay, she was likely going to need to rewrite this anyway before posting it on her bathroom mirror so she could review it each morning as she got ready to conquer the day.
She kicked the backside of the kitchen counter as if it was a bass drum and looked up at the round blue pendant light above her. What else did she want to improve about herself?
3. I won’t call Brandon at 3am anymore.
Another one she could stick to. She was over Brandon, he hardly ever crossed her mind anymore. She just needed this one resolution to complete it and make sure it was to never happen again.
Looking at her list, she determined this year was going to be easy. She had this year by the horns. Last year only lasted until January 4th, but this year… This year will be different for Jessica.
4. I won’t have sex with random men from Tender on the first date.
Another good resolution. The last guy she brought home would not stop talking about how superior men were to women, that women have physically smaller brains and that makes them emotional. So, she shut him up with her vagina. Probably not the best reaction to a chauvinist hog. Then he didn’t respond to her texts the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. This was the resolution she needed.
She had written resolutions to improve her body. She had written resolutions to improve her love life. Now what about improving her career?
Jessica didn’t have a career per se. Jessica worked as a bank teller. She had been there for ten years. In the same position. She liked the idea of a promotion. But it also frightened her. She liked her job as it was. She could easily do it for another twenty years. It was easy and she knew how to do it. Sure, she wasn’t rich, but money was not everything.
She picked up her pen and wrote:
5.I won’t eat any more food from the break room with someone else’s name on it.
That one was related to body improvement too, but it also fits in the work category. Work resolutions: completed!
Family. She needed to think about family. It had been four years since she talked to anyone in her family except for her brother. There was an incident… but it wasn’t her fault.
She may or may not have knocked over Aunt Millie at a family Thanksgiving dinner four years ago. She had only had toast and a three-egg omelet for breakfast that morning and a subway sandwich for lunch. By the time she made it to Thanksgiving dinner she was hungry. She made herself at home at the appetizer table. And the time dinner started, she was still hungry and was determined to be first in line for the Thanksgiving buffet. Aunt Millie was setting out the garlic mashed potatoes and Jessica may have run into her.
Aunt Millie may have broken her hip and had to be taken away in an ambulance. A pair of paramedics and the rest of the family tried to figure out how to get Aunt Millie onto the stretcher leaving Jessica alone at the table with her turkey and mashed potatoes. There was no one at the table to hear that she was thankful for her new pet rock.
Soon after, when Jessica never apologized to Aunt Millie, her parents stopped taking her calls. Her sister would not text her back. And Aunt Millie got a restraining order on her. They did not invite Jessica to Christmas dinner that year. Or any of the following years.
6. Talk to my mom and dad again.
This resolution would not be an easy one and she was determined to complete all her resolutions this year. The year of 2023 was a year of accomplishment. Not a year of defeat like 2022.
6. Talk to my mom and dad again. Send a heartfelt letter to all my family members who won’t talk to me.
A single tear dropped from her eye and landed on the word “sex” from number four. What did it matter? She was going to need to rewrite this anyway before posting it on her bathroom mirror.
Moving on. She straightened her posture. Stretched her arms in front of her and bit her lower lip. Friends:
6. Get friends.
Moving on.
7. Get a hobby.
7. Get a hobby other than make soap carvings of iconic people throughout history.
She looked at the shelf behind her. She had soap Elvis. She had soap Martin Luther King Jr. She had soap Shakespear. She had soap Abraham Lincoln. She was quite proud of herself.
7. Get a hobby other than soap carvings of iconic people throughout history.
She tried again:
7. Make a new soap carving every month.
What else did she want to improve this year?
8. Leave Bakersfield.
It had been years since she saw the front side of the yellow “Bakersfield” sign.
She looked around the room, looking for inspiration for the next item. Her eye caught the sink.
9. Wash the dishes every day.
9. Wash the dishes every day. Clean the house every day.
This felt too ambitious.
9. Wash the dishes every day. Clean the house every day. Don’t leave a wet towel on the bed.
10. Act my age.
She looked down at her rainbow socks. Jessica was almost thirty.
10. Act my age mentally.
11. Take vitamins.
12. Say only positive things on Twitter.
12. Say only something positive things on Twitter.
13. Go to a beauty salon for a haircut.
14. Bathe at least once a week.
15. Learn how to Moonwalk.
16. Learn how to make Kraft Mac and Cheese from the box.
17. Give up alcohol.
18. Take a selfie and don’t heavily filter it before putting it on Instagram.
Jessica looked down at her list. She felt pathetic. Was this really what she aspired to be? Was she trying to make herself something that she was not? Sure, she should probably apologize to Aunt Millie, but that wasn’t a resolution, that was common sense.
She ripped out the yellow paper from the pad, crumpled it up and threw it onto the floor. She turned the pad sideways so that the top was to the right; she didn’t want the seam to impede her left-handed writing. And she wrote in big blue block letters:
LOVE MYSELF!
