56. New Year's Resolutions

It has been 12 days since those final seconds ticked over to herald in the new year.  How am I coming along with my new year’s resolutions?  Well, here’s the thing.  Previous transgressions have long taught me I am a bit of a commitment-phobic and lack the willpower to see through any sort of major resolution requiring prolonged obligations (hence my nickname as the runaway bride but THAT is another story!).  Simply put, I don’t make resolutions.  Instead I simply make decisions then just follow it up with action, albeit giving myself wriggle room to tweak, modify and occasionally discarding as I see fit.  But resolutions, no way, not me.  Okay, I confess.  The last time I made any sort of New Year’s resolution I must have been in my 20s.  Seeing I just turned 45, maybe I owe it to myself to revisit this whole ‘new year’s resolution’ thingy. Hmm… Where DO I start?

So.  I am only too aware of how traffic conditions and other drivers drive me so crazy I feel myself transforming into a highly emotive (that’s code for swearing) driver.  Mind you, its not that my ‘repertoire’ turns the air blue --it normally starts with “bloody idiot”, followed by “where in the hell did you get your license from”.  I should also qualify I don’t hurl these insults out of the car but rather mutter them under my breath, but I guess that doesn’t make a difference.  I did however, for a spell, try to replace “bloody idiot” with “flaming galah” but it just didn’t flow off the tongue as fluidly.  A quick explanation for the non-Aussies reading this:  a galah is a common Australian cockatoo with a reputation of being stupid.  You get the picture.  Not so pretty.  Next?

Writing a40somethinglife.  What started out so promising with an average 8-10 pieces each month has dwindled to a pitying ONE every (gulp!) 6 months (or so)!  I know!  Bad!  What happened?  My writing career took off and as more people read it, I started psychoanalyzing everything I wrote about and agonizing that the topic matter might be too mundane!  That, and I started getting offers for work which led to the launch of “Write Content”.  I love my work but I really need to devote more time to this ‘baby’ before it evolves into a 50somethinglife! Okay, so that’s two resolutions so far!  Looks like I’m on a roll! 

While I’m at it, I might as well add to the following of my ever growing list: exercise more (yes), moisturize more (patchy.. no pun intended!), drink less (no), stress less (getting there), be more organized (patchy), learn how to sew (finally started), eat cleaner (feels ‘mahfun’ ie troublesome) – and I could go on.  After all, there is ALWAYS room to improve, no?  Frankly, instead of feeling motivated, putting together this list just makes me feel exhausted and intimidated before I can even get started – which leads me right back to where I started in the first place – I JUST don’t 'do' New Year’s resolutions.

What I will do however, is continue to TRY to set a good example for my girls by being true to myself, always trying to be the ‘better person’, not putting up with BS AND continue to work on being a more zen driver.  Oh, and I will DEFINITELY finish my book this year AND up the ante in all my writing projects.  Watch this space!

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44. 50 shades of green

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At 20-something, I was an ardent serial dater but convinced that ‘THE one’ only existed in movies and fairytales.  Thrice engaged, friends swiftly tagged me ‘the runaway bride’.  But I couldn’t help it as I see-sawed between hurtling towards, and then running screaming from, the white-picket-fence-2.5 kids stereotype of my generation. Fueling my emotional schizophrenia, was my memory of being a bi-product of a union that imploded when my father’s two-timing came to light and a determination to never put myself in a position where I could be similarly cuckolded.  And then, I met Matt.  And in spite of myself and my fears, I fell head-over-heels (relatively cautiously) and allowed myself to be vulnerable (somewhat reluctantly!).

But for the first few years, I worried.  Worried that my older brother would turn out to be right when he ‘sagely’ told me that ALL men cheat because they ‘simply cannot help it’.   And the problem was, I often witnessed it myself.  At work, wherever I sang, all sorts of men would pursue me with ardent declarations of love (only to cheekily turn up with their wives/girlfriends days/weeks or months later!); or later on, as a mother on the school run, having dads ‘hit’ on me.  And I would feign ignorance – if only to avoid the entailing drama!  Later I would ask Matt, “Am I SO old fashioned and such a prude that these guys’ behavior bother me?”  Was I a prig to measure these situations against whether I would be comfortable with Matt behaving or talking that way with another girl; or how would he feel if I behaved that way?  Was I over-reacting by then steering clear of that latest pesky geezer-in-question?  But by the time I got to 30-something, it was evident that the cause of marriages collapsing was no longer male-dominated. 

Which brings me to the topic de jour: why do some, BOTH men and women, feel that what they have at home is not enough?  An acquaintance has recently started texting and going on ‘dates’ with a man she met at a nightclub on a girls’ night out.  The problem?  1. She is married with the 'requisite' 2.5 children  2. The ‘other man’ doesn’t know she’s married – and the lies and half-truths just multiply!

Not wanting to play judge nor jury here because nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors,  but using this scenario as an example, why do so many dabble with the taboo – be it flirting, ‘hooking up’, or a full blown affaire de Coeur in spite of the nagging feeling there cannot be a happy ending and at least one person will end up devastated.  Why the sabotage?  Men who say things they shouldn’t and make promises they couldn’t possibly keep because of prior 'commitments', women who risk everything in exchange for a little bit of attention or the ones who romanticise that bastard ex -- perhaps looking to recreate something they read in books like D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover or E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey,  to fabricate an ‘exciting’ diversion from what they consider their monotonous and dreary everyday. 

This whole ‘grass is greener on the other side’ notion is often fiction at its 'best'  because majority of the time, if you climbed over the ‘fence’, there’s a high likelihood that its astro-turf or worse, dyed!  Over the years, I’ve had friends (both male and female) whom I’ve had to shake and ask “What were you thinking?”, only to be faced with responses of varying versions of how things weren’t perfect at home and blah, blah, blah..  They forget it takes two to tango.

And so, in spite of some 16 years together, I don’t assume that Matt and I are impervious to the relationship fallout's we have both since witnessed all around us and we try to keep a close eye of the state of our marriage, working very hard to keep things interesting between us.  I am no gardener but I DO know that the grass is greener where it is watered, mowed, fertilised and taken care of.

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