Letting Go

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions for the simple fact that I prefer not to set myself up for failure. Frankly, if I wanted to do any of the stuff that usually generates a New Year's resolution, I’d already be doing it.

But yesterday on the way to work I had an epiphany. I will make a NYR for 2010, to wit: I will no longer worry about stuff I can’t do anything about.

This epiphany came to me over something really ridiculous. I had a hard time getting out of the house yesterday for one reason and another, and was running late. Nevertheless, I have a Christmas party to go to this Saturday night and a new outfit to wear to it, the pants to which outfit are about an inch too long for me. (I won’t go into the problems I have buying any kind of pants—slacks, jeans, sweats—just suffice to say that I’m either on the tall side of short or the short side of tall.) So my plan was to stop at the cleaners on my way in to work and drop off said pants to be altered.

Only I hadn’t yet decided how much the pants needed to be altered. So in the middle of trying to get ready for work, getting the dog out into 2 inches of new-fallen snow and back in again, dried off, fed, watered, and happily crated, my lunch packed, and everything from the Miata transferred to the truck (the Miata does not do well in any amount of snow), I took the time to pin up the pants and try them on with the relevant high-heeled party shoes. Perfect.

Now the roads were bad and it was slow-going. We live in a city that gets snow every winter and has an armada of salt trucks and snow plows, but Hoosiers are the most tax-averse people in the nation, and we have a Republican mayor who blames unsalted streets on faulty forecasts, so services are often sparingly employed.

And the only advantage to driving our Ford Ranger pick-up truck on icy roads is that the truck is heavy, considerably heavier than the Miata. Both have rear-wheel drive and both will fish-tail, so the truck is only slightly more useful than the Miata; the only real difference is in getting started. The Miata will simply slide all over the place whereas the truck will, eventually, through sheer poundage, eventually catch and get rolling.

So I’m rolling, albeit slowly, toward America’s One-Hour Cleaners when I suddenly realize, with utter clarity, that I have left the pants at home, sitting on the kitchen countertop (where I had put them to ensure I would not forget them).

Damn. What if tomorrow is too late, and the alterationist can’t get the job done in time? Should I turn around? No way. I am more than half way to work, and I am probably lucky to have made it this far without sliding into a telephone pole or another car. But what if I can’t get the pants back in time?

Epiphanal moment. Who the fuck cares? It’s not like I don’t have other clothes, even other party clothes, and even if I didn’t, who the fuck cares? I’m practically hyperventilating over this, and it’s just a pair of pants. Moreover, I have never taken anything to this place to be altered that I couldn’t get back the very next day.

But what if? What if the worst-case scenarios are that 1) I wear something to this party I’ve worn before or 2) I go shopping and buy yet another outfit? I like to go shopping, and I like going shopping for party clothes. And I know it all sounds silly and trivial, but who the fuck cares about that, either? I’m 57 years old, I work for a living, and if I like shopping for myself, SO WHAT?

All of this went through my mind in about 30 seconds, after which I had this just huge sense of relief. I had gone to a lot of trouble for nothing, but it was too late to fix it and no point getting worked up about it. And not being worked up about it felt so much better than being worked up about it that I decided that would be my New Year’s Resolution for 2010.

If I can’t do anything about it, I’m not worrying about it.