I’ve got a skin-coloured circle stuck on my arm that informs the eye that I’m a walking stereotype. I’ve quit smoking in order to conquer a resolution, it screams – to go with along with the mass. Truth is, I’ve quit now because I wanted to get through the holidays, first, the nights when The Ex – multi-talented, but especially so with chain-smoking – would be here.
When baking and staying awake all hours to complete the final ribbon curl, label stick and cookie dust could only be punctuated by the scramble for a lighter and a powerfully-hyper inhale before snuffing the butt out, again. Smoking divided my time this holiday passed, building a stone wall between when batters were loaded into the too-hot oven and a child was gathered into her bed.
I’m not baking, now, and the tree’s been packed away for over a week.
I have a flashy bit of rubber rolled up in the only space it merits taking, between the futon and the filing cabinet, upon which the extra phone and alarm clock lie. It’s my apartment’s version of the Bermuda Triangle, that space – things go there and they don’t cease to exist so much as barely stay visible. They take on the transparency of props unused. This rubber (and its partner in wraith crimes, The Shred) is haunting, taunting at me that I will remain skinny-fat, or maybe one day fat-fat because I haven’t even let the new yogi smell out of it.
Yet I still haven’t because I don’t want to lose any part of myself to Jillian Michael’s jawing and I don’t know that I’m ready to gain anything more tangible, either. Abstract muscles are just as comforting, right now, and the sausaging over my cheaply-crafted flannel makes me feel more womanly than the memory of when my guts resembled a beer case.
The wallet, bought for $10 at the local discount store, contains a wallet-sized photo of my daughter that only cost $40 (for the set) but was needed to prove that yes, I took her to preschool and a decade from now, or two or eight, there will be documentation that she was always a mischievous-looking cherub of a ball-buster. Who looked incredibly good in that shade of hot pink that only 1% of the population does. Adjacent to her smirk, cards representing emaciated accounts, collector’s plastic that promises points! or a free something-or-other upon umpteenth purchase, a library card that reminds me daily that I even owe money to the place lending for free.
It’s the little things that add up, the cheap sushi dinners, the latte effect despite quitting coffee. It’s the 325% gluten-free mark-up and the difference between six litres of cow’s milk and less than two of soy. But a sweeping generalization to cut out everything spontaneous, that makes our duo capable of a Vancouver road-trip at any point? Impossible. We’re portable and we’ll remain so.
It’s all impossible.
I can’t promise to stop smoking, quit spending, start exercising. I can’t assume that because 2010 is the year I’d like to fall in love with myself, I will, or that because I’ve dated a personalized solitary-pact, I will, or because this is the year that I’m 30, I will. What I can do, and what I’ve failed to do in every year before this one, is strive for more than I’ve allowed or restricted or exerted before. I can keep an open mind about where and how and in what shape or state of breathing (or riches) I might be – and I can challenge it daily, resolving to do more, less and everything in between that’s something other than good enough.
In 2010, I resolve to quit quitting.
This post is a response to a {W}rite-of-Passage challenge. You could totally See more by clicking the linky, below: if my latest theme played nice. Instead, we’re screwed until I fix mahself a new one.
