It’s that time of the year, again!

Many different opinions about new year resolutions and their helpfulness exist. Other people say they are futile. Others say they are important for starting the year with a set of goals to work towards. My opinion is derived from both these. This is what I mean: New Year resolutions are futile, especially if you only draw them up for the sake of being cool. New Year resolutions are as useful as you make them to be. One sure way of making them useful is to keep checking throughout the year how far you’ve fared with your resolutions.

In the past, I have set many goals and resolutions that I didn’t accomplish. That’s not abnormal and one needn’t be ashamed of it. Not every goal set will be achieved – understandably so. The truth is that sometimes we know when we set ourselves futile goals and people should desist from practising this tendency. If you know that you’re not planning to stop being a drunkard in 2017 then don’t set it as your New Year resolution. Why are you confusing yourself unnecessarily like that?

In 2015, I didn’t really write any New Year resolutions, which, I suspect, is why I found myself most of the time feeling like I was not in control of my destiny, that I was just going with the flow and improvising as I go. But, one thing that occupied my mind last year this time was getting accepted to study at UFS, which I did and passed. As far as any written resolution is concerned, this is the only one I had for this year…

Which brings me to this year. 2016 you bastard of a year! Only a few and the brave claim you as their own – you were no one’s year and quite frankly most of us wouldn’t protest if it were said we strike you of the roll of our collective memory. You brought us Trump and literal prophets of doom. You brought us Penny Sparrow and her ilk and their racist bigotry. You were the year of drought and racism. You took with you our friends and families. 2016 do not pride yourself in your disgraceful achievements… you took students fighting for education to prison… you 2016 are a beast of no nation… we watched in horror as Syria trended on social media… all I can say about you is that we will not forget you, but don’t count on us missing you. You have terrorised us and left us wondering what 2017 brings…

Which bring me to my New Year resolutions. We can only hope that you come bearing goodwill and prosperity and happiness and love and warmth and new adventures and new friends and all the other things that will be on our list of resolutions. We can only hope that you’re not even a distant relative of 2016, but even here we hope without hoping because we know the impossibility of what we ask of you…

You are merely a year, with 365 days and 52 weeks and whatever happens within you is not in your hands. You don’t control it. You are merely an empty page in which humans will chart their history and because humans are fallible beings we can only hope that goodness visits their hearts and their actions will be steeped towards making the world a better place for its present and future inhabitants.

… but for me you come at a time of uncertainty, not to say that you intimidate. I like an adventure and I love surprises. So, surprise me all you like, throw curve balls at me and see me dodging them. I’m looking forward to you, whatever beast you are. I’m looking forward to walking into you and walking of you still standing on my two feet. Whatever happens, I will make sure that I live, and to live to the fullest. I will suck the marrow out life.

Which bring me to why I’m writing this entry instead of the 31st… when the New Year is ushered in. I have decided to stay on this side and not crossover to the coming year.

This then marks my very, very last post in this diary. I don’t want to get sentimental and cry (I have done enough of that this past few days), but all I want to say is that four years is a long, long time and for the past for years you have read my ramblings and entertained my madness. ‘Thank you’ does not begin to do justice to how I feel. ‘Bye’ will make me cry.

I love all of you who read my diary. I have not met any of you but you have touched my life in so many ways and for that I will never forget you, and unlike 2016, I will always miss you!

Phew! The last paragraph is the hardest.

ZZ xx