My New Year's Resolutions

Dear Mum,

2012 has dawned – Happy New Year! May it bring you and everyone who reads this blog good health, good fortune and bucketfuls of happiness.

One of my colleagues commented in December that 2011 was a pretty poor year, with flooding and tsunamis left, right and centre across the globe, worldwide rioting and a shaky economic climate.

This is, of course, all true and bloody rubbish. But commenting that 2011 as a whole was a poor show is a massive generalisation.

After all, we saw the Royal Family accept love into its fold, witnessed the fall of cruel figures, including Osama Bin laden and ColonelGaddafi, not forgetting glorious visual moments, such as Obama’s ‘birth’ video and Fenton the dog running riot through Richmond Park to the frustration of his owner. Joyous moments!

365 days cannot be categorised into either a good or bad year, just as a person cannot be singularly good or singularly bad.

Perhaps, however, if each human stuck to their New Year resolutions, which generally last all of two days, 2012 would be a major success. Our family are guilty of this – we don’t really follow the culture of New Year resolutions. So, this year, I’ve decided to pen mine as a contribution to the improvement of the world as well assisting me in my own happiness. Lucy’s resolutions are thus as follows...

1)      Eat as much cheesecake as possible. This way there will be less cheesecake for others thus reducing others’ weight gain and tooth decay.

2)     Be more patient when commuting. Don’t tut when middle aged men push to get on the train before you. Don’t sigh when fellow travellers turn the pages of their newspapers particularly loudly. Although it is most distracting and irritating, it achieves squat.

3)     Don’t panic that you don’t know what you’re doing in life, that you’re not 100% sure what you want from life, or that you don’t have a Big Plan, or that you aren’t sure what a Big Plan (which all adults ask you about) actually entails. Does anybody? Are there any 21 year olds who have the next ten years organised in a strict plan and stick to this plan religiously?

4)     You’re flying solo now. Deal with it. Be free, single and ready to mingle. With bells on.

5)     Accept that people love their pets as if they’re a member of their family. You should appreciate that you don’t look great when you roll your eyes at owners going ga-ga over their feline or canine companions. Not cool, Lucy. (Well, let’s be honest, these people aren’t cool either but, still, let it go).

6)     Go on holiday. This probably won’t massively contribute to humanity’s progress but you’ll feel a lot better for it and so that’ll make you calmer/kinder/patienter and generally more pleasant to be around.

7)     If you’re going to spend fistfuls of cash on clothes, books, vodka and other favoured pleasures do it locally rather that in massive chains. You’ll thus do your bit for local businesses. (But, generally, avoid spending money as, let’s be honest, you’re sitting in a shed load of debt and are hardly the sultan of Brunei).

8)    Stop shortening words e.g. ‘potentially’ into ‘pontench,’ ‘details’ into ‘deets,’ ‘probably’ into ‘probs.’ You sound like a pretentious pillock.

9)     Ease off the vodka. Try a new tipple.

10)  Accept that you won’t marry Johnny Depp, you won’t win the lottery and you won’t win a Nobel Prize in Literature because a) Yours and Johnny’s paths have never crossed and he is happily married to a total hottie b) You don’t buy lottery tickets – you have other things to be spending your cash on (e.g. 2012’s unaffordable travel fares) and c) You haven’t written anything, let alone anything of note.

With your support, Mum, I will carry out these resolutions with great success and so do my bit for 2012. Wish me luck!