Hooray! Another New Year has arrived!!!! Ok troops….now it is time to…
- Make your New Year’s resolution to lose weight.
- Pretend to yourself and others that you really mean to do it this time!
- While shopping, casually glance at health and fitness magazines as you reach for your People Magazine.
- Renounce bathroom scales and claim “It’s not the pounds that count, it’s the inches” as you cram another bar of Cadbury’s down your gullet, and laughingly remember the tape measure that went to Goodwill, along with your size ten clothing several years ago.
- Write a list of all the things you will accomplish this year, and then with disdain realize it is the exact same list of accomplishments you have failed to achieve for the past three years…
Perhaps we should all stop mucking about and have a New Year’s REVOLUTION on resolutions?
Really, why am I more likely to stop eating on January 1st than any other day of the year? Of course I bloody won’t! Mainly because I am still enjoying the yummy leftovers from the New Year’s Day feast we cooked. Not to mention going out and spending all the gift cards I received for Christmas, the ones that say Arby’s, Charleston’s etc. Honestly, I figure if I make it through another year with most of my teeth and hair intact, and a handful of the same friends, then I am already a winner…..bugger the weight!
I am back from Merry Olde England, after an entire month of being away from Gump and the good ole US of A. I returned to our ‘rustic’ home after a very long trip, to find Gump still being Gump, and stinky Sam, who still sported his ‘boutique’ aroma, which was disturbingly pleasant to my nose……I inspected our premises, gave the Gumpster a ‘C-’ for not totally destroying the house, and I only had to throw out half the food in the fridge.
Boy it does seem weird being back though. My American life seems to have shifted a bit to the west since I vacated my spot and headed east to the UK. I know this will sound odd, but it’s as though the life I left behind me is not quite the same now I am back.….like while I was away, someone put my life in the laundry, washed the shape out of it, and then stuck it in the dryer on too high a heat and made it shrink…because something happened to it while I was gone.…everything feels different……but I suppose another explanation might be that it is the same life I had before, except I am the one that has changed. Somewhere across the Atlantic, something shifted in my brain that has affected the way I am thinking now. Do you know what I mean, or is that too weird?
While I was in Dorset seeing my poor old mum, I had to ride buses every day to get around….lots of buses…. as it took more than one to get from where I was staying to my mum’s place. Mile after mile I would gaze out the murky bus window at people that I knew I would never lay eyes on again. So many strangers, all who probably had families, lives, jobs, names, illnesses…but to me they were just objects that blurred as I passed them by on my number 3 bus to Wimborne. I pondered that when I wasn’t on the bus and walking along the road, someone was probably riding past me on their bus, perhaps thinking in the same vein about me?
There is something very appealing about travelling alone, you become invisible, an anonymous spectator, observer of all the lives acting around you. It feels even more bizarre when you travel to a place that used to be your home, a place where the culture feels familiar and right, and yet you walk among everyone as a stranger. The family that you were moulded from has now seasoned and matured in a different environment, under the same sun but another culture, one that has become as foreign to you as the country you now call your home.
Wow…deep stuff for the blog right? Hey, it is the New Year after all, a time of reflection, a time of self-loathing as we look at our poor misshapen bodies in the mirror, a time of weak promises to ourselves; and sometimes a time of real change. My changes will be minimal, because at 54, I know myself very well. So the only promises I have made are
- To see as much of my mother as possible before she slips away forever
- To forgive myself for being imperfect.From the wrinkles on my face, to the fat on my body, to the callouses on the soles of my feet.I have a lived a life that was not always easy, I earned those lines on my face.I have given birth to two children, undergone surgery, and do not have the luxury of spending three hours in a gym or have a personal chef, therefore my body is chubby.I waitressed for over ten years; and currently spend most of my day running around for other people, hence the rough soles of my feet.
I am sure that every one of you still reading this (after my depressing introduction) can also claim valid reasons for being who we are today. So this year, 2014, I am going to let all the other people worry about their resolutions…..I am just going to try and get out of bed every day without a shitty attitude.
I am still on my patch (arg mateys)….I tried to come of it and even halve the dose (think I got more hormones on my fingers while trying to snip the damn thing in half) ….but all too quickly I felt the simmering begin deep in the pit of my belly, and slowly but surely, the Cracken would emerge, and I would become capable of doing things that would make Lizzie Borden look like Pollyanna.
But….we all survived Christmas intact…I wasn’t supposed to come back until New Year’s Day, so I know Gump had a frantic time figuring out how do all the many things on his “to do while she is in the UK” list. Of course he failed miserably, but he did get my car windows re-tinted, and also got Stinky Sam hooked on Cheerios. We cooked Christmas dinner, there were four of us at the table, and it seemed really quiet, but after a month with family in the UK, that was actually ok. I did Facetime the crew over the Atlantic, and it was fun to see them all there. Just think what all the immigrants in the 1800’s would have done to be able to Facetime the people they left behind…..I am a very lucky person.
Under the tree I had a very large package….I was shocked to have anything under the tree really as I wasn’t supposed to be back in town. I was rather moved, how thoughtful of the Gumpster to get me a gift! He was so pleased with himself too! Imagine my excitement Christmas morning when I opened the massive gift, was it going to be a small box within a box within a box? Nope – I ripped off the paper and it was…..pans…….just going to leave that one right there folks…..
So all, my apologies for a rather tepid blog this time around….my funny bone is a bit flat, but I wanted to at least say Happy New Year to you all, my good friends on both continents. I hope that this year will bring you all many bounties (that is actually a candy bar in the UK…really tasty too), and no sorrows.
Let me leave you with an Oscar Wilde quote
‘I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability’….
Jude – the WOMAN xxx