New Year Resolutions

January 1, 2025 . .11 am .downtown Yerevan .me..and my flat white a beautiful Christmas tree with angel toys on them, a Russian couple with a kiddo trying to capture a shot near the tree to send to the "babooshka" and a handsome foreigner in crocs and sweatpants leaving the cafe...a group of Armenian middle aged men savoring their proseccos outdoors, sitting right the other side of the window from me... Here I am with my headache and heartache, with all the achievements of the previous year and my endless fear of expectations It is starting from today that a lot of people will start going to the gym and dieting, and it is from today that a lot of people will make the resolution to quit smoking and/or sugar, marry or divorce throughout the year, and it is today that I am starting my new ritual of New Year Yerevan morning drive to finally have a chance to enjoy the ride. New Year resolutions do not work... unless you have made them earlier or later than January 1 midnight. As I was enjoying my chill drive downtown today in the morning and finally having an opportunity to see my city without the hustle and noise and traffic jams, I felt overjoyed. So it occured to me that maybe this is the clue to happiness - doing very basic, regular things at times when noone does them, at times when everyone is drunk and asleep. So this is what it means to win in life - to go against the flow, the flow is sleeping, you are living. The flow is living, you are sleeping. At the end of the day, everything happens unexpectedly, as expected. And people who promised to stay are pushed away by ourselves because we had evaluated it all wrong, and random encounters tend to lead to commitments. Russian migrants come and go, while locals stay and care. We ceaselessly plan and hope, but rush away the moment the dream comes true. We want that guy to talk to us, and hate him the moment he approaches. We want to have kids, and are flushed with hysteria the moment it is confirmed we actually conceived. Baristas make the perfect hearts on our coffees and bloggers break our hearts with narcissistic disorders. Family matters, but what our closest kins say hurts and hits at least expected times and in the darkest and farthest corners of our soul. And then it passes. It all flies away. So what is it that stays? Nothing. Not even our muscle soreness after a chain of leg days.