new year's resolutions.

I never used to make New Years' resolutions. I was one of those people who always proclaimed them as stupid, cliche, and things that you said only because everyone else was. Most people forgot about them by February, anyway, I used to reason. As I got older, I started to see them more like guidelines - things that you could post on Facebook if you really wanted to, but if you ended up failing at.. well, they didn't really count, did they? By the time I was a working professional, I stopped thinking about them at all.

This year, I'm seeing things differently. By definition, a resolution is "a firm decision to do or not to do something," "the action of solving a problem, or contentious matter," according to the dictionary. It's something you do, on your own, to rectify something you've been having difficulty with or anticipate having difficulty with in the future. Simply put, it's a promise to yourself. It doesn't have anything to do with a public post on Facebook or making surface-level commitments just to join the fad. So I thought about what I have been really struggling with and want to change in the new year, and this is what I came up with - my resolutions:

reading this past year.

One of my earliest memories is of my dad and I, sitting with me on his lap in his black velvet recliner chair - the same chair that just a few years later I would fall into and acquire a dent in my skull that I still have - reading a big book together, sounding out the words for what felt like hours. They weren’t dreadful hours, though, as that phrase can often mean. They were joyful hours, and continued to be joyful hours throughout my young life into my adolescence and into my adulthood. 

In first grade, I won an award for reading fifty books at home on my own and the prize was a red wagon full of brand new, beautifully illustrated hardcover books. My mom came to the classroom for the presentation, the principal came down to the classroom, and a photo ran in the district newspaper. When they announced the competition, it was the first time I could remember truly wanting something and feeling that fire burning in my gut. I was determined to win and when I did, I was so proud and excited - not just to win, but to win books.