Tag Archives: new year’s

My New Year’s Resolution

I usually don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but this one came to me amid my battle with a post-Christmas stomach bug (maybe norovirus). In my febrile state, I told myself, “I will stop looking back on the past with regret.”

As someone who writes memoir, I often live in the past—reviewing incidents and conversations that occurred years and decades ago and trying to cull sensory details from those moments to make scenes come alive on the page. So I spend a lot of time on yesterday. My office is overflowing with manuscripts documenting countless yesterdays.

A tree in my neighborhood, observed on Dec. 31, 2024.

But for my 2025 New Year’s resolution, I will attempt to stop that negative line of thought regarding “what could’ve been.” I will instruct myself to stop replaying the poor decisions I made in my progression from boy to man.

And I do have regrets. Many. Most nettlesome are the ones where I let fear stand in the way of opportunity—when I was too frightened to take a risk, either professionally or personally. Some of those decisions still haunt me. In this previous blog post, I wrote about my regret about not moving to California after graduating from college.

But in my sickened state, while I tossed and turned in my son’s twin bed—separated from my wife and son so as not to infect them—I thought, “What have all these regrets done for me?” They certainly don’t make the present more bearable or the future more promising. So why hold on to them?

So in 2025, when I get that tickling of regret inside my brain, I will try to shut it down before it festers.

And one of the poems from my collection The Truth I Must Invent seems fitting for me on this New Year’s Eve. I wish everyone a safe and happy New Year. The poem follows. And I apologize for the profanity, but a clean word replacement wouldn’t have the same effect.

The Wanting is the Hardest Part

Tom Petty was wrong.
The waiting isn’t the hardest part.
The wanting is the hardest part.

Wanting fucks everything up—
wanting a better job, a better marriage,
a better house, a better life.
That seed of desire fucks with your head,
makes you think you can be something you’re not.

What if I discarded desire? What if I stopped wanting?
What if I no longer sought a better life?
Can I let go of that fantasy
and accept who I am right now,
without seeking a better version of myself—
the idealized me I hold inside my head?

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A Post-Christmas Poem

December 26

December 26th is
the most dreaded
day of the year.
All the anticipation
of Christmas
has now passed.
The turkey stuffed,
cooked and consumed.
Tins of cookies devoured,
packages ripped apart,
wine bottles drained—
bellies full and
waistlines expanded.

It’s back to work,
with a fat credit card
statement delivered
securely to your inbox.
And yes, you can still say
“Happy Holidays,”
but it doesn’t have
the same ring
on the day
after Christmas.
And New Year’s Day
is a distant cousin
of Christmas—
with January 1st
lacking the allure
and magic of
December 25th.

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New Year’s Reflections

New Year’s Eve 2023. Time to rewind and then hit reset.

I’m grateful for getting another 365 tokens to drop into the slot machine. Another 365 scratch-off lottery tickets to play. Another 365 chances to be better than the day before.

Card from David’s Refuge.

I’m closing out the year filled with both anxiety and excitement.

By all accounts, 2023 was a pretty good year for me. I made some strides as a writer and filmmaker.

I earned an Emmy (my second) as part of a production team at Syracuse University.

Photo by Shane Johnson.

I published a full-length poetry collection, The Truth I Must Invent. I published a couple of short stories and a short play in some literary magazines.

The Truth I Must Invent book cover.

I completed two short documentary films, Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse, which premiered at the Syracuse International Film Festival and was an official entry at the Culver City Film Festival, and The World Series of Bocce: A Celebration of Sport, Family and Community, which is awaiting festival decisions.

World Series of Bocce title screenshot.

I completed a feature screenplay and a full-length coming-of-age memoir (a ten-year project!). But despite numerous revisions, I still don’t know if the words on the page are memorable or whether either project will come to fruition (e.g., production or publication).

So those are my accomplishments in 2023. Big whoop, right? Yada-yada-yada. Blah-blah-blah.

Here are the standout moments during the last calendar year.

In June, my Aunt Teresa, a.k.a. Sister Carmella DeCosty, visited Central New York to attend the funeral of her brother, my Uncle Fee, in Rome, New York. She stayed with us in Syracuse, and we had a lot of fun catching up.

Pam and Aunt T.

A flashback of Aunt T. during a holiday at my maternal grandparents’ house. I think that’s me on her lap, with my mom in red and my Aunt Pat in black.

My seven-year-old son, Colin, who is autistic, enjoyed trick-or-treating for the first time this Halloween. I think he actually “got it” this year.

Colin getting ready to trick-or-treat.

I spent Thanksgiving with my brother Dirk and his family in Rome and my sister Lisa and her family from Ohio. The best part—no snow!

For the holiday season, my wife Pam hung a stocking for Colin in mid-December and gave him little presents every day—stuff like Kinder Joy eggs and Play-Doh. He seemed to understand the concept of Santa Claus, and he was excited to open presents on Christmas morning.

Pam and Colin.

Pam went back to school this fall, enrolling in an occupational therapy assistant program at Bryant & Stratton College. The workload was arduous, but Pam scored high grades during her first semester.

But the most significant event of 2023—I survived my sixth brain surgery with my brain function and memory intact. In July, a team of neurosurgeons and ENT surgeons at Upstate performed a transsphenoidal (through the nose) surgery to remove parts of a craniopharyngioma that had been growing near the pituitary region, affecting my vision. I had a cerebral spinal fluid leak during surgery, but the ENT surgeon repaired it, and the patch is holding nearly six months later.

I wish all good things for you in 2024. A partial list includes: Love, family, faith (whatever you choose that to be), employment, health, health insurance, kind co-workers, transportation, clean drinking water, food, a home, a roof, four walls, a furnace, indoor plumbing, electricity, clean air, and trees. Lots of trees. I am supremely thankful for all of the above.

I leave you with a couple of New Year’s-themed poems. It’s amazing what you can find when you do a word search on the Poetry Foundation website.

January by Weldon Kees

Morning: blue, cold, and still.
Eyes that have stared too long
Stare at the wedge of light
At the end of the frozen room
Where snow on the windowsill,
Packed and cold as a life,
Winters the sense of wrong.

Poetry magazine, March 1951.

New Year’s Eve by Maurice Lesemann

The towers give tongue, the wailing horns grow loud;
And this odd planet where we wake and are
Has once again, amid a tumult of cloud,
Swung safely and serenely round its star.

Poetry magazine, April 1932.

 

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