On New Year's Resolutions and an Upcoming Five Year Review

New Year's Resolutions. Do you make them? Or don't you? At this point, ten days into 2012, you have probably made a decision one way or another - and, as Rush so wisely reminds us, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

I'm a classic type A girl. I love me some lists, and even more I love checking things off of my list. Typically, 1/1 of any year (or 2, 3, 4, or even 5, depending on how lazy I am that given year) finds me christening a new or newly revived journal with my year's to-do list. The list doesn't usually include World Peace, but it does usually check realism at the door. I'm usually sane enough to realize that at my personal mid-year review (...yup, I usually have those), and I usually don't take my "failures" too much to heart. This year, though, will be an interesting test of that philosophy.

I-don't-know-how-many-years-ago-but-let's-say-10ish, my husband (whom I didn't know at the time) sat down with a group of friends to compose a series of personal predictions - not resolutions, exactly, but best guesses and gut feelings for where they would each be five years in the future. Ten predictions. It was an individual exercise, for the most part, but I suspect they influenced each other in the composition. I also suspect that ten items was a little on the aggressive side. (I base both of these suspicions on the fact that my husband's list counted not only his age but also his gender among its predictions). They nominated one person in the group as the Keeper of the Lists, whose primary responsibility was not to lose them in the intervening years.

Three years ago or so, the Keeper sent the lists back to their creators. At this point, hubby and I were living together, so I got to participate in his "five year review," and smile and enjoy where exactly he thought he would be at this point in his life. (In case you were concerned? He is indeed still male and his age predictions were right on track.)

Unsurprising for the almost-psych-major-I-am, I thought this was the.coolest.thing.EVER. So I made my own. Five years ago this Friday. I'm pretty excited to see where 23 year-old me thought she would be in 2012. Probably not here...

But I wouldn't trade it.