RESOLVE

I love fresh starts - Mondays, the first of any month, or birthdays are a great time to "start" something. By start, I usually mean start to quit something, since my vices are many and varied. But of course, nothing beats January 1 for really, really starting a wonderful new habit or quitting terrible one.

On January 1, 1998, I was able to stop biting my fingernails after 30+ years of engaging in that strange habit. I started a new habit of filing and polishing my nails, buying rings, and no longer keeping my hands on my lap when eating out with friends. I have kept that resolution to this day, and I have to actually cut my fingernails every week or so in order to make sure they don't make a clacking noise when I practice piano. (Somehow, I am always practicing piano, never really playing. Another resolution I'm getting to)

On January 1, 1999, I quit smoking - a resolution I kept for 7 years and 16 days. I feel I am a bona fide expert on the psychology of nicotine addiction. Prior to my 1999 quit, I quit for a year and a half in 1990, and numerous other times for periods ranging from 6 weeks to 6 months. Since the Jan 2006 relapse (a bad year all the way around, but I digress) I've done the same, quitting for a month to eight months, on 4 or 5 different occasions. I am very objective about the moments of lameness that lead to returning to the dumbest and most illogical addiction of all. It's not complicated, and far from deeply psychological.

I am at this moment 70 days into my current quit, and feel a need to take advantage of this Jan 1 to really test my mettle with all my other shortcomings, vices, weaknesses. What to give up? WHat to take up? How can I be... more disciplined? Less uptight? Nicer? More accomplished? Fitter? More well-rounded? Less selfish? How can I devote more time to...myself? others? self-improvement? community improvement?

I have a few ideas - and in one last 2010 wine-fuelled, self indulgent, philosphical night of self-discovery, I intend to create a plan for accomplishing all of the above in 2011.

Old Habits Die Hard

OK - time to get on the wagon again. Oh, I know, I've been on and off the wagon like a city bus. At this point, I might consider it a new form of "recovery" - no smoking or drinking for a few months or years at a time when I can muster the discipline for it, and no beating myself up when I indulge. Otherwise - I might find it all too maddening - and not try altogether.

So after a day with no cigarettes and no wine or beer after work, I feel awesome. Slept like a baby, woke up fresh and clear headed. I also feel pretty moronic and stupid, for foregoing this feeling for the last 3-1/2 months. But no more beating my idiot, lame, pathetic self up.

Time for a walk - even if it is raining - I need to pick the elderberries growing down the road before the birds get to them.