The Route to Resolution - Just for Today

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s. Never have been. When I was a child, it signaled an abrupt halt to the excitement and anticipation of Christmas. The presents were opened, the cookies mostly gone, the magical lights would be coming down, and the long western NY winter months stretched interminably ahead.  As an adult, it’s pretty much the same thing. Just strike the “western” part.

I’ve never been the party type either. The idea of being out in public amongst a bunch of on-their-way-to-drunk revelers trying to look/act like I am having fun strikes me as about as appealing as a trip to the dentist.

The turning of one year into another often makes me feel melancholy. Even when it’s been one of the “good” years, even when the year to come holds a promise of fun and new adventures, I still feel mournful. I have just come to expect it. I do not let go of things, years included, easily.

As a child and a young adult, I always made the same New Year’s resolution until I realized it was a losing proposition.  “I will stop biting my fingernails.” It never lasted more than a few days. That’s partly because it was such unconscious activity. I would suddenly realize that I had chomped half-way through a nail. And then, of course I had to finish the job. Off the wagon, there wasn’t much point climbing back on. Perhaps you know the drill. It could be the same for any addiction, any compulsion, any bad habit. You want something to be different (or maybe you don’t, really) and you - along, perhaps with your brain chemistry and other hard-wiring -  are the only barrier en route to the difference.

I still bite my nails. Well, not so much biting as ripping. Sometimes mercilessly. I often complain to the woman I call my heart mother, “I don’t stop until I draw blood.” The analytic route of considering who I might want to bite instead hasn’t put a dent in my habit. I’ve tried nail polish – it works for awhile, until it doesn’t. A friend suggests that I commit to a weekly manicure but I am too embarrassed to let a manicurist see the condition of my fingers, so that’s out. Plus I would have to deal with my entrenched belief that this activity falls in the category of unnecessary extravagance. [Aside to daughter and best friend – this is my issue, not a commentary on your activity.] Those who’ve been up in a hot air balloon or who are planning a Parisian trip with me know that I do not disallow all extravagance. 

So forget the nails. Maybe I’ll torture them until death do us part.

There are several other things on my mind as I skid into 2011. Sugar is one of them. Those who have known rail-thin me all my life might scoff. However, some time during the four years of my mother’s illness, and continuing in the almost five years she’s been gone, I managed to develop an addiction to sugar. It started with mom’s cookies –the ones she always had waiting for me whenever I arrived. Luckily I was pretty underweight to begin, otherwise the problem (and I) might be bigger. It wasn’t until this past year that I began to take a hard look at my compulsive sugar behavior and realized that if I didn’t want to end up diabetic or overweight, I was going to need to intervene. As with the fingernails, I have been a member of the “You’ve gone this far, you might as well finish” club. The things I might as well finish would be the box of cookies, the box of candy, the cupcakes, the half-gallon of ice cream. Far be it from me to actually throw it/them out instead. That would go against my puritan ethic of waste-not-want-not. I’m stuck no matter what I do.

I did learn something in 2010, however, that I see as potentially helpful as I move closer to, oh my god(dess), life without (extra) sugar. I am a binger. I realized this when I began to examine my shopping practice. I could be shopping dormant for weeks, maybe months, but once I made up my mind to buy something, and the first purchase was made, there was no stopping me until I was sated. The trick was to not make that first purchase, which seemed ridiculously easy to me once I realized it. Don’t look in the catalogs, stay out of the stores. Remove temptation. Case closed.    

Although I suspect that sugar will be a harder demon to corral, the principle is the same. Just don’t start. I tried an experiment during my school’s annual holiday party this season. The morning of the party, I said to myself, “Let’s make a deal. Just for today, why don’t you try to not consume any sugar. See if you can do it. No dessert at the party, ok?” I agreed with myself that I could tolerate anything for just one day.  And I did. I successfully walked past the box of high-end candy sitting on the low gray file cabinet where office personnel tend to place temptations. At the lunch-time party, I ate the entrée, the veggies, and the salad. When it was time for dessert, I gave a brief glance at the array of goodies to see what I was missing (Damn! Cannoli!), said “Just for today” to myself, and “I’m getting out of here” to my staff.  Done! Success! Empowered! But sadly, it was just for that day. The next day rolled around and I made no such pact with myself.  

I suspect this is like any other addiction. A little turns into a lot and then too much before one realizes what has happened. The pleasure-in-the-moment makes the what-have-I-done aftershocks sink into the background. Until it doesn’t.  Maybe I am edging toward that point. We’ll see.

I will stop short of pledging a reduced-or-no-sugar resolution for this New Year. The nail failure is still vivid and I don’t need another reason to feel badly about myself. My plan is to employ the one-day-at-a-time strategy. So when I am facing the enticement of icecreamcookiescakecandysodapiefruittarts cannoliscremebrulee and other tasty delights, in that moment of decision, I only entreat my brain to remind my mouth that this morning we urged Just for today. Who knows, maybe in an instance of research carryover, my nails will thank me.