I absolutely detest the holidays. For me, there is nothing more depressing and alienating than having to face the rest of the world for Christmas and the New Year. As a kid, Christmas was a convenient excuse for relatives who forgot my birthday (it’s on the 11th) to go shopping at the last minute. As soon as I found out there was no Santa Claus, it became a reminder of my farewell to childhood. Since I hit my 20s, Christmas has been an occasion to squeeze into a fancy dress and smile till my cheeks go numb while distant relatives do either of the following: tell me how much weight I’ve gained while they gobble down hearty portions of lechon or bombard me with small talk (and the occasional prying question about my love life) as if we were in a film noir interrogation room. Most of the time I spend Christmas stuffing my face as an excuse not to speak and wait for the opportune moment to retreat to my room and watch HBO Family feature films until I pass out. Pretty pathetic, I know.
It gets much worse by the time New Year’s Eve rolls around. Sure, it’s the same dress-up and phony smile routine, but this time is not just spent in a room full of relatives and family friends. This time, I actually have to take my fancy dress and fake smile out on the town with my friends so we can cram ourselves into a crowded bar, fight tooth and nail to score a few drops of nearly-flat Asti to sip on until some random boy looks cute enough to kiss by the time the countdown rolls around. Some of my friends are lucky enough to have someone they really care about to kiss when the clock strikes midnight. I have not once found myself in either of the proverbial New Year’s midnight kiss situations.
As if all those weren’t enough reason for me to hibernate in my room with a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food and Fiona Apple playing on repeat, there are New Year’s resolutions. Since my love affair with blunt cynicism, I resolve, on an annual basis, not to make any New Year’s resolutions. Why would I submit myself to that when, every year, it’s the same crappy dog and pony show? Everyone always seems to arrive at some ridiculously generic common realization – a lackluster reincarnation of last year’s broken promises induced by bad champagne – that they half-heartedly attempt to apply to the way they live their lives. As if making a promise just for the sake of the occasion would instigate a drastic lifestyle overhaul. Much easier said than done.
I remember contemplating all these things early morning on New Year’s Day, sitting at a posh club in my prettiest dress. I kept trying to think of reasons as to why people choose to delude themselves into making New Year’s resolutions. Sometimes people need to give themselves hope that the next year will be better. Sometimes, when people step outside of the cynical pessimist’s universe, New Year’s resolutions are about motivating themselves to make things better. Why had I stopped hoping? I then realized that despite my jaded, anti-holiday system of beliefs, I wanted a New Year’s resolution this time around.
Watching everyone else usher in 2007 was not a particularly moving moment for me because I couldn’t get past how unhappy I had been the year before. Sure, I had made a lot of changes in my life. Some of them were good, but a great deal of them weren’t the kind that stop affecting you after a month-long junk food binge and several sappy chick-flick marathons. I’d gotten so used to avoiding my problems by living life at a dizzying pace that by the time I slowed down to think about it, I found myself trapped right smack in the center of the Bell Jar. All I was left with at the end of a brutally demanding year was severe writer’s block, a few extra pounds and nostalgia for the passion I used to live my life with.
This sort of existential anguish is not a state I like to revel in. It had finally come to the point where I could no longer hide from it. Starved for inspiration and desperate to get my groove back, I struggled to remain true to my conciliatory nature and did the very best I could to avoid it. I busied myself at the office, entertaining myself with every possible menial task in between gulps of black coffee and press releases. At home I retreated to the oblivion of my sofa, developed a first-name-basis relationship with the Jollibee delivery hotline operators, surfed the Internet and distracted myself by going through the heaps of pirated DVDs that had accumulated in our den. I had turned into one of those movie characters that everyone feels sorry for but no one actually likes.
I was more than ready to resign myself to a self-deprecating, carbo-loading existence until the time came to reach for the greasy spoon in the sky – when a few terribly predictable things happened. First, the Taiwan earthquake took out six of seven submarine cables responsible for providing several countries with the means to run fixed and wireless services… meaning the DSL got cut in my office and at home. Worst of all, I couldn’t complain because it was an international dilemma. Second, I ran out of DVDs to watch. I’m not kidding, I watched every single DVD in my house, including the ones I had recently ordered from Amazon.com. Third, I got a horrible case of indigestion. I guess my supposedly foolproof plan to wallow wasn’t so fabulous at all.
But after all those terribly predictable things happened, the most bizarre idea occurred to me: I tried to write. It didn’t matter that I had no sound argument to make or a structured outline to follow; I simply had to write. I picked up a pen and a year-old journal that had since remained empty and didn’t stop until my words began to make sense. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t by any means produce a literary masterpiece or derive the cure for cancer. But I did finally figure out my New Year’s resolution: to write for myself. After fingers started to cramp, I felt better than I had in weeks.
These days, I never stop writing. Even if my profession requires me to do it all day, I force myself to write at least one piece (whether it’s an essay, a motivational quote, a funny anecdote or a word I made up just for fun) before I go to bed. I may not write like the thirsty, impassioned teenager that landed me my first gig as a journalist, nor can I produce the well-thought-out, witty offerings I try to share with readers on a bi-monthly basis, but the important thing is that I’m keeping my New Year’s resolution. Which means that, despite my cynical, jaded, anti-holiday sentiments, this self-indulgence and liberal use of the first person may mean that now, I’ve got something to hope for. Here’s to a better year.