New Year's Revolutuion

Happy New Year, like

Funny thing, losing the plot. it doesn't half change your priorities. In fact, it doesn't just change them, it gives them a sound buggering before dousing them in petrol and attacking them with a flame thrower. 
Take this new year malarchy of list making, goal setting and generally piling on the pressure until you sweat spinal fluid. Prior to the loss of my marbles my new year's eves were laden with fevered promises to write books, crack new editors, run marathons and travel to far flung outposts with nothing but a toothbrush and reversible knickers. I'd usually do what I promised I would too. 
Then I found myself sailing up Barking Creek on HMS Nutbag. Suddenly the steaming urgency to swim for the Olympic team or knock out 10,000 words of award-winning literature per day was, pardon the technical terminology, pushing my luck all the way to Fucksville and back. In fact, mid-breakdown you could have tasked me with showering after remembering to take off my pyjamas and you'd have been bitterly disappointed. I used to stare at the kettle because I couldn't remember when it did, for shit's sake, and panic when there were too many baked beans on my fork. In the blink of an eye I'd gone from glowing over-achiever to being bewildered to the point of insanity and with the functioning capacity of a gin-soaked toddler.
Which is why, post-breakdown, all this new year pressure to do, do, do looks to me like a big bag of bollocks. So my resolution for 2012 is to have no resolutions. I have absolutely no intention of making 2012 my big year by publishing a novel or bagging a column or swimming the channel. My only vague requirement for the following 365 days is to survive them, ideally with a modicum of mental faculty, by exactly this time next year. 
See, having been tossed so far into the hole of depression means that even the slightest gains become towering achievements. I can read a book without becoming so overwhelmed that I cry, which is my new version of writing a book. I can spend two hours with Kraken Junior without needing help and support, my replacement for marathon running. And I'm capable of basic hobbies, which will replace 2012's attempt at forging ahead in my career.
All of which makes for a happy new year. The lack of pressure is glorious as is my contentment at what I've achieved since my marbles rolled under the sofa. Which means that January 1 won't be the first day of anything. It'll be another day of something and that, for me, really is the greatest achievement of all.