New Years Resolutions are all about improving, changing, transforming – usually for the best. Since my teenage years I figure, as probably most of the feminine part of the planet, I have had the same New Years Resolution:

Be tall and thin.

Problem is, I am not taller that Sponge Bob, and I am 42 and that is not going to change, so yes! reality is a bitch, and since I have milked my boobs for more than 2 years – so is gravity.

The past years had brought me a big deal of experiences that include not getting taller and definitely not getting thinner. Sponge Bob here has been retaining more water than necessary and blown up from an abusive relationship, to a devastating divorce and a not-a-walk-in-the-park aftermath. The resolutions these past years then, have become a little more realistic, a little more concrete than peace on earth and stopping global warming, and therefore, a little more selfish.

Or should I say more assertive?

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One may compare life to many things. While I was cleaning the house yesterday – because always sometimes my own Zen comes out of the sophistication of housekeeping – I thought of similarities of life and bingo.

You go to play bingo excited and scared at the same time; careful and confident; prepared but unprepared. You know you need to bet – you have you money ready, you know a ball is coming up, and you better be ready and quick. All that, despite you are not 100 % aware of the result a capricious number may bring.

No matter how you rehearse for life, you never know for sure what number will come up next.

The best thing you can do, is to keep your eyes open and you shoes laced, your pen sharp and close to the paper, so anytime you may be singing line! proud and high, and maybe, just maybe, Bingo!

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There is plenty of selfishness on me, and plenty of assertiveness also. I am referring to that selfishness the lions in Africa have. That selfishness that means protecting their territory and their families: so am I – because my family means to me everything in this world. Assertiveness comes with the fact that there is no real relationship without loving oneself. Without the love of my own self, I am not able to give what I don’t have to the others. Period.

So! When considering my resolutions these pasts after-the-storm years, I make balance and I account that I have done a good job as a mother, as a professional, as a friend… But what about the woman in me? All these years, in the middle of the turmoil, where did my essence go?

It really hit me a couple of years ago, on a New Years eve where I felt as odd as the odd number of people around the table, being me the oddest of all. Somebody mentioned men that odd wasn’t a good way to start the New Year, but pare. After everybody left, I looked myself in the mirror and I wonder: would I be happy if I was a pare, or would I be happier if I continued being an odd, and holding my own numbers?

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On the impossibility to guarantee what number will come next on your life´s bingo, you just need to be very assertive of reality, on what you want or what you will. I start by the opposite, by deciding what I don’t want or what I don’t want to do (or wouldn’t like to do). After all, You may prepare yourself in case you shout line! or even maybe bingo!, but do you prepare yourself if the one shouting is not you, but the one on the next table?

After betting all your illusions on a carton full of (uncertain) numbers, how do you handle disappointments?

That night, an SMS comes after I go to bed oddly happy. The SMS is suggesting a pare situation, just for a bit, because after all is New Years Eve. Since I am a sucker for humor, and because that is something that I want, I agree, and before I can even get a new carton and a new pen, my legs spread until I shout line! bingo!, many times, not for a bit – but until 6 pm the day after.

And despite it wasn’t the first one, I liked that odd feeling.

Eventually I get so good at bingo, that before I know I am handling not one, but two – and eventually three cartons, all fresh and crisp and ready to give me the right numbers. I am holding the cartons, and this assertiveness tells me that this is the woman I was looking forward, more or less real, because after all, this is bingo. The more I assert my role as a woman, the more I realize vulnerability is my kryptonite. Because all these men cartons are so wonderfully addictive, I need to make an extra effort to be the one holding the pen.

And so, one day a new ball comes into place; a ball that carries all the numbers you need to fill a carton to completion, fast, clean and so radiant with kryptonite, that before I know I am pushing all the cartons off the table and keeping just this one. Eventually, I learn to sync my game with kryptonite, because it usually comes in small does, but once in a while (apparently on some determined Sundays) comes with such a full force that throws me out of balance and breaks my defenses… and always sometimes I believe these blows are intentional, and I don’t like them a bit.

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Playing bingo is fun; and the important thing is to keep remembering that it should be fun. How you do it, (odd vs. pare) is all a matter of how many cartons you can handle, or how much kryptonite you want to get used to.

I should keep remembering that I have math dyslexia.