New Year’s Resolutions: 2021
Focus on my Health
This year, I resolve to focus on my health. I’ll sign up for virtual workout classes, continue to not eat at restaurants, and make sure I actually get eight hours of sleep instead of just lying awake telling myself I need to go to sleep NOW if I’m going to get the full eight hours. I’ll also wash my hands every 30 minutes, wear a mask when I leave the house, and actively throw a (separate, breathable, possibly patterned) mask at every maskless person I see. I can’t focus on my health without focusing on everyone else’s health. I’ve just about had it with this pandemic, and this year, I’m going to do something about it.
See Friends and Family
This year, I firmly commit to holding tight to what matters most: my friends and family. Of course, I can’t actually hold most of them unless they’re in my pod and because I get too sweaty when I get excited and I know it grosses them out even though they’re all really nice about it. I commit to not changing my aunt’s Zoom name to ‘Brunhilda the Meddlesome’ on our group calls anymore, and I’ll stop pretending to ‘develop symptoms’ any time my mother-in-law asks me to do something. And even if my friends and I can’t be together in person, we’ll still stay in touch through weekly chats, playing Among Us, and taking the EMT training course I’ve enrolled us all in together so we can gain valuable medical skills and/or early access to the vaccine. It’s 1,200 dollars a person. We just need *one* more stimulus check and we’re there.
Commit to Self-Care
In 2021, I’m taking more time for myself. Not by myself, for myself. And that means resolving to actually use all the things I stress purchased this year to manage my stress: the manaTea tea infuser, the heated foot massager, the Andean Clay Mask, a #BidenHarris2020 weighted blanket, one of the 12 aromatherapy sets, that winter coat that everyone was buying for 100 bucks three years ago that I got on sale in July, CBD socks, a Fraisier coloring book, coasters that keep tea hot but also give compliments, and the Headspace App. Using these and a combination of other things I’ve found around my home during lockdown (hello 463 paper clips and 16 USB cords!), I will care for myself in the most profound way possible, by developing a homemade vaccine and/or cure that can be mass distributed using household objects. I’m not a first responder (yet!) so I won’t get the “approved” vaccine until God Knows When. Eff that. It’s 2021. If people can make meth out of batteries, I can develop a COVID antidote using a hot plate with voice capabilities.
Give More to Charity.
I will give the formula for the aforementioned artisanal COVID cure away for free. No patents. No nonsense. Resolution complete.
Read More
In the ‘saving local bookstores’ phase of the pandemic presided over and mishandled by our 45th* president, I bought 63 volumes about pandemics, public health management, mass vaccine administration, coronaviruses, the politicization of medical care, and aromatherapy (apparently it doesn’t actually work for “everyone”). As soon as January 1st hits, I’m hitting the books. An EMT with a confrontational attitude who develops an alternative vaccine and/or cure and ALSO possesses an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the socioeconomic and political context surrounding this medical moment?? Unstoppable.
Not Sweat the Small Stuff
In the second year of the new decade, I resolve to not get riled up about little things. Like the fact that years ending in zero should operate as sort of neutral transition points between one decade and the next so that years ending in one can be the first year of the decade. Or that technically Joe Biden will actually be the 45th* president because for some reason, we count Grover Cleveland as the 22nd and 24th when he was actually just one guy. So the most accurate thing would be to call Biden the 45th president and the Biden Presidency the 46th Presidency. But these are the things I’m not focusing on in the new year. I’m not going to let little annoyances distract me. Focus on the minutiae has been the downfall of many mask vigilantes, vaccine development experts, and EMT students before me. I’m not about to sacrifice the 8 years of the decade (see it feels weird, though, doesn’t it) to this virus just because I wanted to talk about our national counting deficit instead of the lack of rapid tests.
Live in the Moment
As I single-handedly save the world from this virus, I promise to take the time to look around, take stock, and just *be.* I don’t want to wake up in the first year of the 2030s (the end of 2030 and the entirety of 2031) and regret not having appreciated the time I spent harassing strangers, learning how to insert an IV on Microsoft Teams, making a viral cure out of stress reduction aromatherapy materials, and absorbing over a century of information in a few months. I resolve to pause and fully absorb the magnitude of my accomplishments past, present, and future as I Cure and Eradicate COVID19 on my way to becoming the first EMT President (#46).
2021 is going to be my year.
