What New Year means to me

"I can remember New Year was also a time where some people who are drowning in their personal craze make resolutions.

I remember my father telling us that he doesn’t believe in New Year resolutions the day I was shouting everywhere that I’ve got resolutions. He said that anyone who was keen on changing could change on the 25 of December. Said resolutions were cliché and a total hogwash"

Years back, New Year meant a carry-over celebration after the Christmas. I saw it as a time people revered and basked in the sheer narcissism of being one of the people who “made it” to another year as they shouted “happy new year” amidst the crisp harmattan breeze.

Those days, the New Year almost meant nothing to me. I remember being fascinated by the conventional response “I wish you the same”. Not until our family friend who stayed in England at the time called during the New Year and when my mother said ‘happy new year” to her she responded with a more fascinating response. She said “I wish you the very best”

Year after year, I waited for the New Year for me to respond with a quite different response which wasn’t the mainstream response. ‘I wish you the very best’ sounded so legendary to me to the extent that I began to misuse it even during my birthdays. I remember my mother’s friends laughing at my ‘legendariness’ the year I was 14 and happy birthday was flying around the air. I gave wings to “I wish you the very best” and it began to fly around too. Not knowing that my new response to my birthday wishes was like filling round holes with square pegs. That was the last year I used the very best response. You know how you begin to doubt a thing after it has cost you something? That was exactly what I suffered.

Also, I can remember New Year was also a time where some people who are drowning in their personal craze make resolutions. I remember my father telling us that he doesn’t believe in New Year resolutions the day I was shouting everywhere that I’ve got resolutions. He said that anyone who was keen on changing could change on the 25 of December. Said resolutions were cliché and a total hogwash.

He told us the story of the man he knows who flings his big cigars into the bush every New Year and watches to know where it landed so when he’s tired of the resolution he could easily locate it to continue…

Those days are gone. Gone and gone. New years have actually meant more to me these days. It has graduated from the narcissistic mantra of happy New Year and I wish you the best to “what next?”

I mean; is this going to be a replay of the previous year or is it going to be different? After the celebrations and jolly, reality locates our various balls and kicks it remarkably to bring us back to track if by anyway we had sidestepped.

It means a new 365 paged note book that will determine what my autobiography will look like. It means the end of a new beginning. It means a great opportunity to fight harder, focus more, smile more, love immensely, eat healthy, and dump ‘nonsense’ friends plus many other things.

For me, how the year ends depends on how the year begins and how consistent and dynamic one can be.

If having a resolution was a proof of being human, I resolve to love unapologetically in 2017 and use the love to break grounds.

Happy New Year friends!

I hope you wish me the very best.

Written by Osuchukwu, Mark Anthony.

He is a writer who masquerades as a journalist to be taken more serious especially when the police ask who he is. He could be reached via markanthonyfoundation@gmail.com