Bertram's Blog

Out with the old, in with the . . . same old, same old.

There isn’t any appreciable difference between December 31 and January 1 except for a new calendar. Of course, we pretend there’s a difference because . . . well, because we think there should be a difference. The only time there was a difference, at least in my life, was when it came to school years, and even then, the difference wasn’t appreciable since the first days of the new school year often duplicated the last of the old one as we reviewed the previous year’s work.

But now, as an adult, nope, there’s not any difference between the old and the apocryphal new. In fact, as far as I remember, I never did anything for the new year until after Jeff died. Then, I wanted to do as much as I could to make my new single life different from my old shared life, so once or twice, I even stayed up to midnight and toasted the new year with a glass of bubbly — sparkling cider, if I remember correctly. I wanted a change of focus, a turning away from the way I wished things were to the way things are and maybe even to the way things were meant to be. And that seemed to help me continue on without the person who’d been the focus of my life for so many decades.

What helped during those grieving years now seems ho hum. I do, sometimes, play around with New Year’s resolutions in an effort to make the new year seem new again, or at least to make myself seem new again, but resolutions don’t really help. It seems to me that making a resolution sets one up for failure. Because if you plan to do something for a year, chances are, you won’t continue when the year ends, and if the resolution is going to end, then why wait until the end of the year? Why not in June, or February, or even today?

Still, I did make one resolution I’d like to keep — to stay away from news and opinions of any kind. (Except for my own opinions, of course.)

There’s another resolution I’m planning to keep for a month — to stay away from sugar and wheat. Neither one of those things is good for me, and both create problems, but both are hard to stay away from permanently — no pizza ever again? I don’t eat it very often, maybe a couple of times a year, but still, even the thought of it can be a treat. And no chocolate? Heaven forbid! But I’m trying to do a body reset, if there is such a thing, and so I’m being careful what I eat.

A third resolution I plan to keep when I can — to walk every day. But that’s not much of a resolution when I allow myself an out from the beginning. I’m to the age where I notice every joint, every muscle, every ligament and tendon, and there’s no telling when I get up in the morning which of those things will be out of whack. When you think about it, that so many people live for many years, especially when they are young, without being reminded of a single body part is the true miracle. To think that all those parts once worked painlessly together is truly astonishing! Adding to the “out” of walking every day is the weather. I have no interest in going out in dangerous weather. (Dangerous to old bones, that is.) But, I’ll do what I can for however many years I can.

A fourth resolution isn’t so much a new year’s resolution, but rather a hope since I can’t do anything until spring. I would like to get my head more into gardening and lawn work than I did last year. Last year I went through the motions but didn’t really care. This year, I’d like to care, especially since a neighbor gave me a gardening record book, and I’d like to thank her by actually using it. Though admittedly, it will be mostly blank until March or even April.

And there’s a fifth resolution. Well, not actually a resolution, something that just happened. So far, I’ve blogged every day this year. Whoop-de-do! Two whole days! Sometimes I think I’d like to get back into blogging — I liked that it gave my days form and focus. Other times I wonder what the heck I’d been doing putting so much of myself out there for all the world to see. Did I really just spew out my grief, talk about my father and dysfunctional brother, show my new house and yard, let everyone peek into my private life? It was one thing to talk about author-y things back when I was writing, but the rest? Eek. Not smart! So far, the balance scale is . . . balanced. If I do, I do. If I don’t, I don’t. And either way is fine.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.