resolutions and realizations

I just got home from 2007's New Years festivities. It is now officially January First 2007, and as tradition dictates, I have to make a new years resolution. Usually I have things like "will work out regularly" or "will diet and make it stick" or even "will stop chewing my nails." Things that in reality, won't happen. This year I'm trying a new approach. Drop the whole "weight" issue and make family a priority. The whole "exercise and diet" thingy never seems to work anyway, so why even bother? Maybe it will just happen on its own. But family I can deal with.

I have two sets of grandparents and one brother (plus wife and kids) who I rarely call. So, this year, my resolution is to call them all once a week. Regardless of whether they call me back or care that I'm calling them. I'm going to call them all. That is 156 phone calls this year. (52weeks x 3 phone calls, if you're wondering). That I can do. I like talking on the phone, and I like my family. I won't care that one set of grandparents complains about their health all the time and the other set never asks me about my life, only my brothers' and specifically his kids. I'll call them no matter what. I'll call them until they do care about my life, because they have no choice but to.

Now my realization: I looked up resolution (in the Microsoft Word Thesaurus) and made a discovery. Its not a "goal" or "possibility" like I thought it was. Resolution really is a synonym for declaration, pledge, promise, oath, vow, decree, and solution. Its not something you think you might do, or you hope to do, or that you want to do. It is a decision that you make that you will do. So things that you don't think are a possibility in reality (like my grand "working out" ideas) are sucky resolutions. A goal is a target or an aspiration that you have, but a resolution is a decision previously made. Its a change that has already occurred, and just needs to be followed. For some reason at 2 am this is really profound to me.

New Years was fun this year. Not because I went to a fancy party (like I had planned to) but because I just spent it with people who I love. I hung out with my sister, and we told each other stuff we don't tell people, and gossipped like mad, and ate appetizers and desert, and drank coffee, and had fun. Then we went to Gaither Hour from 9-10 at my church's new years thingy, and laughed our way through it (don't tell the pastor) and then went to a friends house and hung out and talked and laughed and almost forgot that it was even midnight! It probably the lowest key new years that you could invent, but it was fun, and I don't regret anything, and I'm going to go to bed now, wake up tomorrow and have a good day with my family. Just being with them is good.