I Shall Not Be Resentful

I don't normally pay much attention to New Year resolutions. Mainly because I know I will only feel rotten and guilty to see how miserably I have failed in resolutions like: will lose 20 kg in one month, will make time to meet relatives at least once this year, will remember everyone's birthday, will stop stressing over every little thing – such as is that jaywalker going to make it across the road while the killer buses race each other?
Resolutions are fine for the calm and collected, the organized and efficient, people who know how to manage their time, to multitask and juggle. Come to think of it why do these people even bother with resolution lists when they know they will accomplish every single aspiration they ever think of. Oh yes, so that they can smugly cross out that list – Climb another peak. Check. Get promoted to CEO of a multimillion dollar IT company. Check. Ace the finals in the exam of the Advanced French course. Check. Learn to make crème brulee. Check. Stop craving crème brulee after every meal. Check. Have an hourglass figure by summer. Check. All I can say to this is 'ugh' 'aarrgh' and 'hmph'.
But no, this year I have promised myself not to be resentful of these perfect people who have never had to chop off a lock of hair from the practically balding spot near the parting because the round hairbrush just wouldn't let go when it was rolled up too tight. Nor will I begrudge those people with ridiculously plush bathrooms with fluffy rose pink hand towels that smell of pine and vanilla. And definitely I will not go green with envy at the clean, shiny desk of my colleague, complete with potted plant and beautifully engraved penholder, just because my own desk looks like vicious secret agents have been rummaging around for that microchip that could destroy the world with its super classified contents.
Instead of all that negative thinking I will try to be different and make a resolution. My resolution for 2015 is: De-clutter my life.
This will include some of the following:
Make it possible to walk in a straight line from the bed to the windows without the zigzag obstacle race to circumvent suitcases that never get emptied and put away, stacks of magazines from the 70s, the bag of defective chargers, the cartons of 'miscellaneous items' (there might be a few packets of expired chocolate wafers in there) , the huge, pockmarked red exercise ball that I constantly refuse my nephews to play with because “this is not a toy, it is very important for my exercise” and of course the stationary bike my brother so optimistically had given as a birthday present but has now been transformed into a coat hanger and towel rack.
Promise to let the chairs and sofa be free to sit on and not be burdened by books, clothes, wet towels and bank documents.
Promise to let the stack of books be and not reduce them to mini tables for mugs and flower vases.
Throw away all those bottles of hope for thicker hair, disappearing under eye shadows, younger skin, devastatingly long eyelashes and enticingly soft hands.
Dump those single earrings, lockets with stones missing, stones with the lockets missing, beads from that funky bracelet –all potential media for that spectacular masterpiece you were going to make 'in the near future' that would actually start a brand new avant-garde artistic career.
Give away those 27 designated saris you wore at all those 'holuds', that you kept as memories along with the kameezes, jeans and blouses that you were certain to fit into after all that exercise you would definitely do on the stationary bike and with that exercising ball.
You may snigger and smirk and say 'yeah yeah, we all say these things but never really follow through.’ Well to you cynical, jaded, untrusting people let me tell you that I have already started working on my New Year's resolution. I have just thrown away, albeit a little reluctantly, a bottle of sugar on my top desk drawer from when we moved into the new office building in 2011.
Happy 2015!