It’s that time of year again, time to make resolutions, swear off bad habits, and promise to form good ones. Since the pandemic has laughed in the face of all my good intentions for the past two years, I’m trying to outsmart my Covid-weary brain this year by making resolutions more in keeping with the topsy-turvy world we’re still living in. Fingers crossed, my strategy will meet with some success.
In 2022, I commit to stop:
- Going to Building 700 when my class is in Building 900 and then wondering where all my students are.
- Misreading the clock and showing up for class one hour and fifteen minutes early and, again, wondering where my students are—or why the office is locked, or why finding a parking space was a breeze.
- Panicking over my lost keys and riffling through my purse for ten minutes in the Target parking lot, while actually holding those very keys in my hand.
- Getting out of the car and going back in the house to look for my phone because it’s not in my purse…when it is right there in my pocket.
- Pushing up my glasses (and simultaneously poking myself in the eye) when I am, in fact, not wearing my glasses.
- Changing from my regular glasses to my sunglasses before getting in the car and then changing back to my regular glasses after getting in the car (and wondering why it’s so bright) because I forgot that I’d already changed into my sunglasses.
- Taking the wrong car, the one I know is too high for our twelve-year-old, eighty-pound dog to jump into, when retrieving said dog at the kennel or groomer.
- Whining loudly in the shower about the fancy shampoo I bought not lathering up when in actuality I have poured the fancy conditioner on my wet hair.
- Wasting that same fancy shampoo by mistaking it for my body wash and saturating my body sponge with it.
- Putting dog food in the dog’s water dish and water in his food dish while distracted by my million highly unlikely, but stubbornly persistent Covid-y “what-if” fears.
- Pouring the laundry detergent in the fabric softener and/or bleach dispenser, for the same reason.
- Running the dishwasher with no detergent at all. Again, same reason.
- Eating two cookies and part of a Hershey bar by accident because I forgot I’m not eating sweets.
- Sending the email without attaching the attachments I said were attached.
- Forgetting every single blessed word I’ve ever known at the precise moment I open my mouth to say them!
And there you have it, my friends, my downsized, but possibly doable resolutions for the new year. Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and hopeful 2022!