New Years Eve...the most hopeful night of the year. People will wake up and make their resolutions. They will smoke their final pack of cigarettes, have their last "cheat meal" before their new and as of yet unimproved diet, and drink themselves into a new and optimistic year. Gym memberships will be made, initiation fees, first and last month's payments will be scribbled on checkbooks nationwide, or charged to the light-weight bank accounts of heavy and not-so-heavy-weight Americans.

Jobs will be lost, jobs will be found, love encountered, broken, and repaired once more. People will work on their marriages...until another inconvenience arises or a new co-worker walks by. Politicians will make promises and stand on new platforms, never knowing, or perhaps knowing all too well, that the ground is shifting and their "platforms" along with them. Children will be born, while others will be sacrificed to choice and "freedom." The same freedom that has robbed America of its own children, bred to die for an idea, a fleeting, elusive notion given life only by our over-active imaginations and superseding need to shove these notions down the throats of every man, woman, and yes, even child. Freedom is not defined by a triage of wealth, choice, and the pursuit of happiness in the shape of more wealth and extra choices on the Wendy's dollar menu or the "adult" section on our satellite service. True freedom, the lasting kind, lives in the opportunity for a distributed amount of wealth, the choice between what is right and what is better than right, and finally the pursuit of the happiness of everyone, not just ourselves.

Eventually, resolutions will be forgotten, discarded due to lack of time, stress at work, and difficult personal situations. Gym memberships will be "frozen," in case our circumstances change, cigarette companies will continue to make money, and over-indulgence will become even more advertised in the media. Lindsay Lohan will relapse and the war will continue, under a new banner, maybe "a conspiracy of children to exploit U.S. intellectual property" or "a plot to monopolize Iraq's booming gambling industry."

This cycle, unbroken, is the very opposite of hopefulness and deserving of nothing more than the roll of an eye or an impatient intake of breath. So why do we continue to create these self-imposed covenants? Why do we insist on holding them high on a list already full of un-kept commitments? Maybe because we hold on to the glimmer of suggestion, that small light at the end of an ever-widening tunnel that promises a brighter and better tomorrow. Sound ridiculous? It is. But we're only human. Of a most select and unusual kind...we're Americans, bound by imagined notions, shaky platforms, and a misplaced sense of compassion for those we ourselves are destroying.

As for me...I would like to see beyond the glittery foreskin of shallow promises, knowing all too well the disappointment charged in every empty word, fruitless letter of a New Year's resolution. But who am I to halt the pattern of a lifetime, the very lifeblood of American society?

That said, here are some resolutions:

1. Enjoy life
2. Accept God's will in its beautiful or unwelcome packaging
3. Be kinder to people, especially my parents
4. Become mindful of the sacrifices of others
5. Treat my body with the respect and reverence it deserves

LOVERS ONLY.

My icons are available at my icon journal, which i promise to update more frequently now that the academics have begun to wind down in loo of graduation! woohoo :)