My New Year's Resolution

I have never given much stock to the idea of a New Year's resolution.  I don't like the idea.  People start with grand ideas of losing weight or quitting smoking or whatever, and by February, the whole plan is off track and forgotten soon after that.  So ten to eleven months of going back to one's old habits, only to be followed by another empty self-promise at the turn of another year.


That being said, I've decided to make a New Year's resolution for once.


It's lengthy, and it's a work in progress.  It will be under constant revision and edit.  And I will have to evaluate it's effectiveness from time to time.  But, here goes:


I refuse to continue living off of table scraps and leftovers of life.  No longer will I accept fleeting moments of attention.  I will not take brief, rare moments from other people that are thrown at me like pocket change to a bum.  I will stop trying to survive on the thin, wispy air of acquaintance.  And no longer will I beg, whether literally or figuratively, for the affections of another.


I ask -- no, I demand -- to be allowed to fill my lungs with the life-sustaining breath of love and friends.  My own friends.  My own loves.


I deserve to be as important to other people as they are to me.  Gone are the days where I give all, losing all sense of who I am, just to please other people, only to be taken for granted and tossed aside when I can provide no further gain.


Footprints across my heart I may allow to remain, provided the path taken doesn't include footprints across my back.


To those I have allowed into my life and into my heart, feel privileged.  Those people who enrich my life, who make me a more complete person, I thank you, and promise you my heart, my head, my hands, whenever you need them.


To those who take from me and never give, or who use me for their own gain, 2012 is the year I bid you... adieu.