New Years is Over

BY SANDY FRANCIS

I drank my champagne, kissed my husband, wished Happy New Year to my children and grandchildren and instantly made some silent resolutions.  As I gazed around my friend’s party and observed everyone’s gaiety, without hesitation, I decided upon my first resolution.   I will never have a New Year’s Eve party!  Ever!  All I could think of as I watched guests tossing the confetti in the air at midnight, was I’d kill if they made this mess in my living room.  I’d call in hit-men to “take out” the people who were kissing, while holding drinks and oblivious that they were spilling them on my newly upholstered furniture.  And of course, there’s the story of my old friend Frank, who decides each year that it would be funny to blow that “facockta” paper whistle in my ear.   You remember the one that unfurls when you blow it?  Each New Year’s Eve, he decides to surprise me by sneaking up from behind and blasting it in my ear.  You would think after the fourth year I would be prepared, and I never am.  I don’t seem to remember to bring ear plugs.   But this year after he performed his yearly stunt, I had a superb revelation.  It was time to reveal my true feelings to people who bug me to my very core—like Frank. What a great idea.  New Years or not, I told him what an idiot I thought he was, and how his stupid whistle-in-my-ear over the years had caused me to temporarily go deaf.   Then I told him  he was nothing but a pure annoyance.   Clearly I had insulted him, but he didn’t blow whistles near me again.  As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him again. Whew, that’s a relief!  Thus, I arrived at my second resolution.  From now on, I’ll not hold back speaking my mind.  I can back away from relationships which haven’t meant anything to me in years.  I don’t need to pretend to like someone I don’t.  And they don’t need to pretend to like me.  I think I’m finally ready to handle that.

  My third and final resolution came after New Years, and it’s a biggie. I have decided to reveal my age and it’s about time.  All these years when the subject of age arose, like a bullet, I would change the subject.  It’s no one’s business how old I am.  How dare they be so thoughtless by asking a woman to reveal her age.   Of course, I would flat out lie.  Once I told someone I was twenty years older than I am, certain that she would laugh and of course never believe it. Not only did she BELIEVE  it, but expressed how well I looked for my age!  I don’t see much of her anymore.  But now I’m a new person.   I have freed myself up.  My age can be an open book.  I stand very satisfied with my three excellent resolutions for this year of 2011, and there’s not a chance I’ll renege.  Allow me to review.  There will never be a New Year’s Eve party at my home, I’ll be very honest and perhaps more outspoken about my feelings and lastly, I’m about to reveal my age.    So here goes…On this past October 3rd I was……I was….

  Oh well, it’s the first two resolutions that are the most important!