16 New Year’s resolutions I will (probably not) keep
Last December, I vowed not to touch my friends’ tits or leave the house with wet hair.
This Christmas, a good guy friend of mine walked into the woman’s bathroom at our every-week bar to find both of my tiny, un-manicured hands pressed against his girlfriend’s chest. He was looking to smoke a cigarette and we’d been in there for close to a half an hour discussing DD bras and breast reductions (a life event I’d been denied earlier this year for lack of a better insurance plan, and to be fair, shitty luck).
The next day, my hair dryer broke.
Needless to say, my resolutions have a habit of hitting the high road come MLK weekend.
Not all was lost, though. I did stop buying cold cuts out of boredom and start buying unlimited Metrocards. I did not ask any OKCupid matches to “meet me at the Ratchet Pussy Party” and I only drunk texted my ex-boyfriend once* (to my knowledge).
*This is a story that no one believes. It was a-quarter-to-six on Santacon — second in line only to Saint Patrick’s Day for NYC’s drunkest and most degenerate day of the year — and I was simultaneously hailing a cab by Calico Jack’s, and trying not to get hit by one. As I haggled with the driver to “please take me to South Brooklyn for a flat rate” and “not fuck me over, it’s almost Christmas,” a drunk Santa emerged from the backseat. His sidekick was asleep (such is life). Before I could turn around and rush the two along, the coherent man-in-red said,
“Hey, Meaghan.
How’s [ex-boyfriend’s name redacted]?”
It was a friend of his from college that I was not nearly drunk enough to see.
The text read something like,
“Saw [Santa’s name redacted].
He asked me how you were. Fucker.”
(Only there were a lot more typos and it sounded a lot less cool.)
I read four whole books (which, as a writer, seems pitiful but is a vast improvement from last year’s single read: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling). I stopped Google Map-ing the closest Chipotle (one may have opened across the street from my apartment but that’s neither here nor there) and I stopped staring so hard at children on the subway (their parents, not so much).
This year was not my best, by miles. But it wasn’t my worst, either.
I signed a lease with two boys in a band who, 12 months later, I consider family (even if the seat’s always up and there’s always tobacco in the glass crevasses of the coffee table).
My girlfriends and I celebrated our five-year high school reunion by drinking full bottles of (complementary) red wine and running through the hallways of said high school like chickens without heads, and super-super-super seniors who’d forgotten their locker combinations (#hailtotheeourschool).
My writing went viral and it was equal parts terrifying and completely bananas. I had love-mail and hate-mail and readers in North Korea which, looking back, seems both ironic and confusing. I became a featured blogger for The Huffington Post (with a login and everything!) and finally thought (while splurging on brand-name waffles at Foodtown), “Hey, this whole writing thing might actually work out.”
I was recognized (as said featured blogger) at a graduation party by the tattoo on my wrist, which is still one of the wildest things to ever happen to me (up there with: dancing three inches away from the lead singer of Hellogoodbye on what used to be the runway at a strip-club-turned-venue in the West Village, and casually e-mailing Aaron Samuels).
He totally e-mailed back and it was totally grool.
Our group welcomed its first baby, little Leo, and he’ll be one this February.
I celebrated my first birthday without my mother, but only cried once (twice if you count the beer tears post-one friend’s bloody face-plant and another one’s arrest). Three months later, I hosted the second annual fundraiser/concert/Sunday afternoon drink-fest in my parents’ memory and raised more than $6,000 towards cancer research. I also raffled off an inflatable kayak and a bud light rocking chair but, again, that’s neither here nor there.
I visited London, just because, and did not die at a five-day music festival in Delaware.
I laughed until I cried, and I cried until I laughed (almost always in public, often at the bar).
And so, in the spirit of every “New Year, New You” post that you’ll see today (the majority revolving around losing weight and “getting fit”), here’s sixteen New Year’s Resolutions that I probably won’t keep because Urban Dictionary said so and “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
1. Read more on paper and less on screens.
2. Give form-fitting shirts another chance (the resolution formerly called: Don’t buy anymore fucking flannels).
3. Take more risks. Say “yes” more often (unless, of course, you want to say “no”). In that case,
4. say “no.” Do not say “maybe.” Put your size-9 foot down.
Nein. Nej. Ne.
5. (For God’s sake,) stop trying to make brunch plans. Accept that everybody (including you) would rather sleep in past noon and re-watch the first season of Broad City. That being said,
6. try to make and keep at least one set of brunch plans. (DO IT FOR THE BLOODY MARYS.)
7. Write more of what you want to write. Leave the resignations of high-profile congressmen at your day-job and start telling the world about the 750 milliliter bottle of Smirnoff that helped shatter your knee-cap senior year.
8. Pay more attention to the group texts of loved ones, and respond with something more meaningful than an an emoji of an airplane seat.
9. Write a follow-up e-mail to Aaron Samuels that says “your hair looks sexy pushed back.”
10. No tumblr after midnight.
11. No chocolate after midnight.
12. No Tinder after midnight.
13. Look up from your god-forsaken cell-phone every once in a while. Stop texting while walking. Stop texting while eating. Stop texting while talking to friends IRL and, most of all, remember what Ferris Bueller said about life moving pretty fucking fast. (Also get that shit fixed, you’re going to get glass in your fingers and die.)
14. Lose weight/get fit. (I’d be lying to you if I didn’t mention the miniature, foldaway stair-master I just impulse-ordered off of Amazon for my bedroom because, #booty.)
A little sweat ain’t never hurt nobody.
– Beyoncé
15. Actually use said stair-master.
16. Smile more and bitch less. Nobody likes a Salty Sally.
Meaghan McGoldrick 
Your post was hysterical!
Thanks, man! Happy New Year!
i like you
I luh you, doe.
Didn’t know this existed until right now. I am (as per usual) inspired, impressed, and proud. First of all, yay to the both of us cause I totally read 5 (MAYBE EVEN 6) books this year! #unprecedented
Your writing represents all the wants and shames and complaints of the early 90s children of this country. I’m commenting this now so that when you’re a best selling author, people have proof that 1) I called it and 2) we’re friends
Great job AGAIN 😀