Soft tremors grip the clock’s hands at the edge of midnight, the time served maestro stands poised to conduct the year’s final crescendo. The world remains swaddled in a blanket of shimmering frost, holding its breath as the hoary year collapses, once with eyes glimmering with zeal, now a weary traveler at the end of its journey. It dies a glorious demise as the sky lights up like a clear dawn, marking the birth of something fragile yet intoxicating—a resolution. A pledge, or a prayer, whispered, lest it loses its potency, into the ether, sworn to gods, stars, or merely the self, that the year born shall be different.
Resolutions, like the paper lanterns carrying the hope for the year to come, float into the night sky, camouflaging among the endless stars. Purpose is their fuel as they ascend, but seldom does God hear those wishes, often they flicker and sputter out before reaching the heavens. They remain, in the end, ephemeral promises, it is a pity for they are crafted each year with meticulous care, like heirlooms destined to endure. This recurring paradox of years past sings a duet of sorrow and hope, a melody that pains the heart and heals it too.
Draped in a shimmering gown of ambition, resolution lilts her voice with promises of metamorphosis, her whispers seductive as she speaks of lives reborn, her countenance conveying a layer of conceit, her naïve mind deceives her, her faith shall fail her, for she believes the mere act of her creation might summon the vigor to conquer all. She is but a fickle creature though, as a cold shroud of doubt soon engulfs her appealing finery. The calendar’s first tear is barely shed before she stumbles, her golden hems catching on the jagged edges of reality.
It is a fool’s errand, this curious thing called faith. Yet in the sanctity of my consciousness, I believe. It is an ethereal feeling, to free oneself of the shackles of inertia, thrust a lance of hope into the gray skies of routine, to assert that life means not mere existence, but a voyage of defiance and dreams, against the towering waves of dubiety.
Futility does not render it meaningless; instead, it paints it in hues of tender resistance.
Time, that ageless puppeteer, watches on with a wry smile as the resolution stumbles through January’s doors, tripping over the detritus of last year’s failures, bruises paint it blue, but it endures. February greets it with cold indifference, its chill mornings steal the fervor, once aflame, now flickering dangerously. By March, the resolution has fallen victim to the sin of sloth, a faded echo of its former regal likeness, even as it falters though, it leaves behind gilded footprints of effort, small and scattered shards of progress.
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Hope, the mischievous child of the human spirit, thrives in this fragile dance. She pirouettes between failure and perseverance, her laughter a balm for the weary. Hope understands what the resolution does not: that success is not the crown jewel, but the mere act of trying is a triumph. For every broken vow, there is a lesson learned; every misstep, a new path discovered.
The new year, an ancient artist with a canvas of days before it, gathers the scattered palette of the year past and begins its work. Each failure of the brushstroke, a crack in the delicate frame of a life yearning for reform. The resolution, though shattered, becomes a mosaic of attempts, a testament to resilience.
And so, as the year progresses, the resolution fades, but its spirit lingers in unexpected places. The gym membership gathers dust, but the morning walks continue, the novel remains unwritten, but the journal fills with fragments of thought, the diet falters, but meals turn more colorful.
The resolution’s grand ambitions, though unrealized, birth quiet revolutions.
By December’s return, the cycle draws up its motion, to begin the journey anew. Hope gathers like a moth to light at the anvil of the soul. The heart regards the year’s work, a collage of gold-flecked failures and blue tinged victories. The resolution smiles, soft but healing, ashamed no longer of her scars. She understands now that her purpose now, not to be whole, but to inspire wholeness in her pursuit.
This is the kintsugi paradox of resolutions: where beauty lies not in the perfection but in the golden cracks of resilience that mend the shattered dreams. Each fracture revealing veins of effort and hope, stitching the human spirit together with threads of perseverance. To resolve is to defy entropy, to proclaim that tomorrow we shall be blessed with light, even if today remains dim.
As the clock prepares to strike midnight once more, I find myself whispering to the resolution, that gilded muse of fleeting dreams. “You will break,” I whisper, it is not a threat, but a promise. “And in your breaking, you will teach me to heal. To find beauty not in perfection, but in the shards left behind.”
And so, with trembling hands and a heart stitched with gold, I step into the new year, not to conquer but to be redefined. To break, to mend, and to discover that in the fragile dance of resolutions, hope is the artist, and I, the canvas.
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Ishani is currently a student at Jogamaya Devi College. Having always had a passion for writing, she wishes to pursue it as a career in the future. Her interest in writing stems from countless hours of reading books of all genres, with a particular appeal to high fantasy and thrillers.
