Is This You? Conformity?

OK, take a deep breath as here are, hopefully, the last words to end the holiday season. Whew.

When I opened my email recently there was a note from a friend. Which needed to be pulled and tugged out from all that yuck and clutter that invades my inbox occasionally! For instance: Just how did Ms. Idiocity from some foreign land I can’t even pronounce, know I was awaiting her note I was to cash the $2,500 check she would mail to me and then I could send her a mere $800 back, so she would be able to escape from her baboon of a husband who beats small kittens with sticks and judging from his picture, wears the biggest brightest orange and purple shirts known to mankind — and on and on. How did she beat my spam filter? Click, delete and move on.

No the note I refer to brought conformity, or the lack there of, to making of all things — those danged New Year’s resolutions. Well maybe leaned more to the lack of conforming to resolutions and definitely toward the resolution to know enough about yourself you’re not going to keep said resolutions. Quite a merry-go-round we spin on during this resolution season isn’t it. I won’t bother you with all the dos and don’ts we all make and break during this time. But rather let’s take a jab at conformity.

Yes, yes we all at one time or another conform to the world around us. To conform means to adjust yourself to act as others might. To go with social pressures. We vote and then the time honored thing to do socially is to gripe about the winners. We eat too much then as we sit uncomfortably on our Barcaloungers it seems to have become allowed to gripe about the uncomfortableness of the meal sitting and gurgling in our tummies. We buy a new anything then on the chance we see an advertisement about our new purchase we find, we gripe about the price we paid because another store just a mere 50 miles away had the same anything on sale for $20 less. Conforming can also show its good sides within the social pressure cooker.

We go to church and pray with like-minded parishioners and feel warm and fuzzy. We hold a new baby and say what a wonderful smell a clean baby has and take a deep breath. We look at a sunset that blasts a glow of red and orange and yellow into our eyes and in awe, we conformists all want it to last forever. I sense you are thinking about a recent hold of a baby or a sunset you hold in the recesses of your mind — well come back to earth.

In these times conforming, or not conforming, to making and keeping resolutions has become a resolution in itself. I will not tell my over-indulged self I will do better this year. I will not try to answer every text I get. There seems to always be more things not to do than to do when climbing the resolution ladder. So as aghast as it may seem, there are things I will do — because I have done them before and they work for me.

I will still gripe about too much snow on my deck, but I will still enjoy shoveling it even though it drives my other half crazy I’m outside when it’s below freezing. I will as I have always done, buy too many fresh vegetables at one time and then chide myself as I throw out a smooched and somewhat hairy tomato that’s found hiding in the back of the veggie drawer next to the stalks of limp celery that are too far gone for even soup. I will laugh out loud too much, cry because the cutest kitten in the litter didn’t make it, and re-tell the story at family functions, about what happened during a family photo to explain the weird looks on everyone’s faces. In short, (Ya like I can be brief about anything!) I will continue to be me as it has been said, with warts and all.

But in light of a new dawn appearing I will thank you, my ity-in-put-ers, and those of you who read these fun remembrances and pull your own memories out of your own cobwebs to enjoy. Now that is a resolution I can easily and joyfully keep each week. Hey! Thanks!

Trina Machacek lives in Eureka, Nevada. Her book can be found on Kindle. Share your thoughts with her at itybytina@yahoo.com