My plan for the new year

 My plan for the new year | Opinion

Updated 8:05 AM; Today 8:05 AM

This January 1 will be different than the previous ones, author Charles Kraus says. It will come crashing through pent up and exhausted emotions, smashing disappointments, ennui, and feelings of hopelessness. A course correction offering concreteness to objectives that have been elusive.

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By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Charles E. Kraus

Typically, my New Year’s resolutions are performa. An annual recommitment to eating healthy, behaving well, improving my outlook. And always, my final resolve is to stick to my resolutions. But as we end the disastrous current year, I’m not inclined to plagiarize from my previous self-deceptive goals.

January 1st is usually symbolic. A reset. A chance to start over. Of course, like many on this New Year’s Day, we turn the page only to discover a continuation of things already in play. More of the same with an adjusted date stamp. Obviously, 2021 is going to be different. It will come crashing through pent up and exhausted emotions, smashing disappointments, ennui, and feelings of hopelessness. A course correction offering concreteness to objectives that have been elusive.

I understand a great deal of heartbreak is still in the mix. One of the top items on my list is to find out where, when and how my family will be getting vaccinated. But simply writing the word VACCINATED improves my frame of mind.

Here’s more of what I’m up to, and this time, I’m determined to stick to my plan:

My emphasis will be on my family. Grandchildren, children, friends. You’d have to scroll way down to find any entries involving commerce. Since March, I’ve refreshed Amazon so often Bezos cited me in the annual report. One exception: I might be purchasing a lot of airline tickets.

I’m going to take a timeout from “Breaking News,” “Open Immediately,” “Urgent,” “This Just In” — from all the onslaught of shocking, existential, political, moral and constitutional-crisis events and pseudo-events that have been etched into my screens. The initial batch of information about a political scandal caused outrage and concern. Then, over time, as the numbing adjusted my tolerance levels, my main reaction became disgust.

I certainly won’t ignore useful news. I hope to learn more and more about less and less COVID-19. I”m anxious to find out when my stimulus check will be arriving and when my favorite restaurant can reopen without restrictions. I long for the day restrictions once again become self-imposed, discretionary considerations, similar to the advisability of ordering a second slice of cake.

I think about the joys that will be coming my way in 2021. Hold on. That’s wrong. They won’t be coming my way at all. “Coming my way” suggests yet another delivery person misplacing yet another bubble wrapped package in front of my neighbor’s door. “Coming my way” means another tepid pizza showing up with the wrong toppings, handed over by someone who looks exhausted and in need of a fresh mask. I don’t want things coming my way. I want to go out into the world and retrieve them.

I’ll get in my car, walk down the street, enter a crowded store, visit a theater and marvel at the sensations running up and down my spine. Sensate activity switched on with a new, as well as renewed, appreciation of and for what lays on 2021′s horizon.

Charles Kraus is the author of “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ,” a memoir.