Promises With Better Lighting

Resolutions Are Just Promises With Better Lighting #.

I don’t completely trust people who make very confident New Year’s resolutions.

“I will become organized.”
“I will study every day.”
“I will stop caring what people think.”
“I will become a better person.”

Sure.

And I will grow wings and fly over the Ligurian Sea wearing perfect eyeliner. Still, since everyone is speaking about 2000 like it’s not a year but a science fiction event, I suppose I should make some promises too. Quiet ones. Not the dramatic kind people announce at dinner so everyone can later witness their failure.

First: I want to stop apologizing before I speak. Not always. I’m not trying to become rude.  But sometimes I hear myself beginning sentences like I’m asking permission to exist, and honestly that is humiliating.

Second: I want to study earlier instead of waiting until panic becomes my only academic strategy.

Latin, especially.
Latin is clearly waiting to ruin lives.

Third: I want to write more here. Not beautifully. Just honestly. There’s a difference, even if adults keep confusing the two.

Fourth: I want to understand people without immediately protecting myself from them. This one may be ambitious.

Fifth: I want to see M. more without turning every goodbye at the station into a private tragedy. Though to be fair, G. stations are basically built for emotional suffering.

Sixth: I want to borrow Mom’s perfume less dramatically. Angel should not be worn by someone who still loses pens in her own room.

Seventh: I want to remember that E. is usually right when he says most romantic disasters are badly rehearsed theatre, but also that being dramatic is sometimes the only available hobby.

And maybe I want to be braver.

Not loud.
Not fearless.
Just less willing to shrink.

Tomorrow everyone will talk about midnight, fireworks, the year 2000, computers dying, civilization ending, kisses, parties, dresses, countdowns… Tonight it’s just my room, cold windows, school books ignored on purpose, and the strange feeling that something is standing very close on the other side of the calendar.

Maybe nothing will happen.
Maybe everything already is.

PROMISES.
Remember me,
Eclipse