In elementary school I always had difficulty remembering which year it was. On each assignment that required a date, one could often find a scribbled number that hid my embarrassment. 2006 and onwards became 200X, where X can be any number between 0 and 9. 2005 and below lurked around in the 1990s, fitting for a decade of gelled hair, boy bands, and the creation of Nunavut.

If I were a psychologist, I’d guess this indifference to one year or another was because I always hated new years. To me, they seemed an arbitrary date of importance decided by nothing more than the Earth’s helical axis, an Earth, mind you, that would keep spinning with or without our champagne, party hats, and countdowns.

Perhaps we realize this insignificance, and that is why more often than not New Years is spent bamboozled enough to forget the last year. We poison ourselves in the hopes of happiness. All the failures and regrets, the sadness and unresolved depression are washed in party plans and alcohol. Our insecurities drown, and for a brief moment, we feel happy with a bottle for a baby in our hand.

Then when the morning comes, and the day shambles itself together, we need to come up with aspirations for, well, ourselves. I did this below with the weight of responsibility after a night that was anything but responsible. It is, of course, satirical because nothing is quite as funny as oneself and the goals they set and set again.

It’s happening again.

It really just sneaked up on me. One moment it’s one year and then the next – poof, it’s gone like that, and I’m diving head first into one drink then another, and I kiss a girl, and I start to feel woozy, and my stomach celebrates the New year with its own colourful pyrotechnics.

I didn’t have time to plan is what I’m saying. But hey, that’s okay. There’s still time, right? January 8^th isn’t a bad time for resolutions. Better late than never, someone once said. I wonder if they thought about the implications of that statement. I mean – I’d rather never be sick than be late to get the bubonic plague. But maybe I’m just picky. The bubonic plague was all the rage in the Dark Ages, and doesn’t fashion have a way of coming back?

But anyways: resolutions. Well, the first one is easy: come up with new years resolutions.

Boom, just like that – I’ve already completed one. I’m on fire. As it were, it’s so easy to complete your goals when you have none.

Maybe I should take a break? All this success is tiring me out. Yes – a break will do me well. It’ll give me energy to combat this oncoming annum.

And besides if I’m using words like annum instead of year, I must be confused because I’m tired and tired because I’m confused. Does that make sense? I’m not sure. I guess that just proves how tired and confused I am. Sleep will settle everything.

I’m awake and I’m feeling groggy. Nothing is better. At least this page is still here. So what’s next? Ah yes. Writing. Need to do more of that. Don’t I want to pen the sentence that has never been penned before? Maybe something like purple hippos are the unsung heroes of Canada or “Hey, you should eat more McDonalds because it’s good for you” or I promise I’ll go to sleep tonight before 2 am tonight.

Well, look at that – those sentences exist now and I wrote them. Another new years resolution finished. I shouldn’t have worried. These are coming easily now. Maybe I can do with another nap?

How about that: let’s make a third resolution to sleep more. I mean – I am tired from the previous nap. I need a rest from the rest. Please wait as I accomplish this resolution too.

Done. Now, a fourth? Workout. Wait a second. Last year I wished for something similar and that didn’t work out, if you mind the pun, so well. Maybe I should say, “Work out some more." That’s a good qualifier.

Wait… I used that one two years ago as well, and again, not my finest failure. Besides it implies I already work out and let’s not lie to ourselves this early in the year. Fine. How about “Get less fat.” That’s something I can stand behind, if of course, I can still see my behind by the end of the year.

I’ll admit that these lofty ambitions need specifics. Generalities hide the responsibilities of each independent goal. Therefore this year I’m going make sure that every day I wake up, shave, shower, eat breakfast, drive, work, study, read, drive back home, eat again, work, study, read, go to sleep, repeat.

There – my days have now been planned for the rest of my life. And better yet, I have resolution after resolution after resolution lurking in daily existence.

Next: do stuff. This might be contradictory to the specifics required in the daily ritual resolution – note: add don’t contradict oneself to list – but anything I write can be reduced down and qualified. I’ll have to stipulate endlessly. So doing stuff allows me to accomplish my goals without knowing I accomplished my goals. And hey, I’m already reaping in the rewards. I’m completing this post. I’m breathing. I’m doing stuff.

Last but not least, know when enough is enough. Some stuff is too much and some stuff is too little, and other times, some stuff is just some stuff. This year, there’ll be a lot of stuff coming my way, stuff both good and bad that I’ll be unable to prepare for no matter how foolish or grand or intricate my goals may be. Against a million upon million of variables beyond my control, all I can do is start what I want to do, this post for example, and end it when I need to, right now for example.

 

I was told that if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right the first time. Otherwise you might find yourself wondering what the hell went wrong with your hands full, your shoelaces tied in knots, and your pants on the ground.

A year and a half ago, I was found myself in such a snafu. Personal circumstances not withstanding, I was struggling with academics, my extracurriculars were demanding and thankless, and I was surviving on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches and coffee. I was miserable. I was depressed. And worst of all, I didn’t admit any of these things.

At the time, I was limping along in The Silhouette as an opinions editor. Having previously worked as a news editor the year prior, I felt I would have a good grounding. I wasn’t green anymore. I was experienced.

The year was going to be different. It had to be: it was my third year. By then, I was supposed to have figured out what I wanted to be, who I was, who I wanted to be and how I would get there. I was told that by then I would have a plan and I’d be happy in achieving it. My successes would be numerous. I’d be loved. I wouldn’t feel alone – there would be hundreds of people cheering me on, not exempting myself.

But as the year picked up, I had my doubts. I was alone, I failed, I had no plans beyond the next morning, and I wasn’t looking forward to even that. Every day, I felt as though I had been kicked in the gut before I got out of bed and every night I felt the same.

There are hundreds of reasons for why this was the case, but none of them are important. To some they may be ancient history lost in the bygone texts and appeals. All that matters is what I did, not what was happening to me, and I’m sorry to say I did very little if anything at all. I let myself get the better of me. For a while, my despondency defined me, and all – my family, my friends, my work, and my academics – suffered as a result.

After sloshing back and forth between ideas reserved for darker days, I wrote the longest sentence in the history of humankind. It consisted of only two words, but it took two weeks to compose. I had to bleed it out. It was: I quit.

For most of my life, I thought quitting was a sign of weakness. In letting go, it was as though one couldn’t handle all aspects of one’s life. Not only were they letting other people down, but they were letting themselves down most of all. No longer were they full individuals; they had excised a part of themselves and a part of who they could be. And in this butchered extraction, in selecting one part of themselves over the others, they poured their blood everywhere.

But this, I have since learned, is false. Eventually all people are worn down and fail. For some, it happens very early in life; for others, it happens when they're old fogeys and their dentures find themselves on the floor and they try to pick it up and there goes their back and there goes their bowels and there they go, wobbling along with a squish squish to the bathroom.

To quit is not to admit that one is a failure but instead that they have boundaries and they understand them. It is not a sign of weakness but of strength; it says, “I can’t do this now but maybe one day I can.” We won’t necessarily be stronger or smarter or faster when that day comes, but we’ll be us, a person who isn’t limitless but so fabulously limited instead. We won’t be a thin paper bag trying to collect all the groceries on one go. We’ll take multiple trips. We’ll plan accordingly. And if nothing else, that will make us stronger, smarter, faster.

This is why after a year and a half, I’m back here writing once more as the opinions editor. I fought. I lost. And now I am ready to battle again with one word, then another, then one more.

 

It was the vaginal swabs that caught my eye first.

In wire thin black marker, the words were embossed on a plain white box. The corners of the white cardboard were ruffled, a deep crevice bled into the edges. Sitting there on the green plastic chair, I wondered how many times the doctor put his fingers into that worn, tired, little box.

“Kacper.”

His hands were old and dilapidated, a broken leather of human flesh that was neatly distorted. In each wrinkle a story could unravel, and I’d be brought out from this hospital room and into Poland where he was studying medicine twenty years ago or Spain where he met his wife or those precious, private moments when he first cradled his daughter. A life would sprawl from these hands, hands that were now shaking along a medical clipboard like a seismograph.

But as I waited for him to find the words and the appropriate papers, no story was told. Instead all I could see in the poor lighting was his dawdling hands swaying left then right and the words “vaginal swabs” scribbled in front of me.

“You’re healthy.” He sounded tired.

“I am?”

“Completely.” A strong Polish accent licked his words.

“Then what about…”

“Growing up has its mysteries.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem, though.”

“Why not?”

“Nothing a daily dose of exercise cannot solve.”

He clapped, drawing his hands together. Their jitter had since calmed down to a mere tremor and now they rested on his lap. For a second, I think he was trying to flex.

“Do you work out, Kacper?”

“Not really.”

“Well, that isn’t very good now is it? In my day…”

He droned on and on about how he used to work out at the beach because girls were there and how he managed to pick up a few and how working out boosted the immune system but it also boosted something else if you thought long and hard about it.

I smiled and said I’d work out. That, dear reader, is why I’m here. For this, under a doctor's orders, is my daily dose of exercise. It is a finger flexing over a keyboard, a brain firing off random thoughts, and a fight against my exhaustion and sleep.

Every day, I’ll post here discussing some opinion, personal essay, journal entry or comedic piece, and every day this will become a place where I’ll try to convince myself that I’m right about being wrong about being right. It’ll make little to any sense, if any sense is worth making that is.

In these entries, you’ll also find the happiest story known to human kind and you’ll find the most saddening one too. I’ll write about every sinner and saint, every mother and father, and every continent and littlest city where everyone knows each other’s name and the pancakes are cooked to a light brown and there’s always work if you need it. And there’ll be posts about croquet too.

The entries will be short. They’ll be long. They’ll be romantic and they’ll be antiseptic. There will be laughs, disbelief, moments of anger, and there will be cussing about how stupid the writer is and how his glasses aren’t straight on his head and why hasn’t he shaven and is he really wearing sweatpants again? There’ll be a lot and there will be a little. Some days, a sentence will be enough. Other days, you’ll have this and it’ll be exhausting and you’ll scroll down to the end to see if anything good will come up.

Sometimes there will be something good, sometimes there won’t be, and sometimes all you’ll find are a story about vaginal swabs. Other times there’ll be nothing but me there smiling and prodding you on. “Read,” I’ll say, “it’s the best medicine. It’ll keep those chest pains, and the gnawing emptiness that fuel them, away.”

I’ll add, “Heck. This is your daily dose as much as it is mine.”

And maybe you’ll be having a bad day or maybe you’ll be bored because god knows in a time when we can see anything on the internet, looking at nothing is sometimes enough, and you’ll feel better because you’ll know that each day I’ll be there with you at the corner of these pages, laughing if you laugh and crying if you cry.

So let’s write and read and find out what a vaginal swab looks like before this prescription – the Silhouette’s daily dose – runs out. See you tomorrow.