A resolution by any other name

Despite speculation to the contrary, I haven’t forgotten about you. The truth about why I haven’t written in so long? Well, basically, prior to Christmas holidays I was exhausted and grumpy (and trying to avoid dishing out negativity) and since the new year, I finally got my tv hooked up to cable. This, as you know, is my definition of heaven, and as a hobby requires most of my spare time.

Nevertheless, if you’ll allow me a little slack, we can play a bit of catch up.

Fiji, as I’m sure you expected, was fabulous. Everyone likes to ask what the highlight of the trip was, and I can unequivocally say it was sleeping in a super cold air conditioned room on a very comfortable bed. My friend Jules and I spent 10 days at a great resort called Outrigger on the Lagoon, but neither the lagoon pool nor the ocean just behind it could compare in satisfaction to the pure bliss that was our room. We didn't even pretend to be embarrassed when we would comment at dinner that we wanted to eat quickly because we couldn't wait to get back to our room, put the Do Not Disturb sign back on the door, slip into something more comfortable and climb into bed. Our ‘something more comfortable’ was a t shirt (me) and pajamas (her) and our beds were separate doubles. We got room service, spent a small fortune on in-room movies and enjoyed champagne in the late afternoon delivered by the butler. Worth. Every. Penny.

Another highlight? Fiji has a McDonald's! Don't underestimate the power of the
golden arches until you spend an extended period of time without
the option of a Big Mac.

This is the reminder notice for the massages we booked - I guess our
Do Not Disturb sign  sent the wrong message

As some of you may remember, after making my original holiday plans, I decided to extend my vacation by about 5 days. I figured we would have met people at that point that I could spend new years eve with, rather than returning to a fairly empty Honiara. Wow, what an overestimation! All the other guests appeared to be either couples of families, so with Jules leaving early on new years eve as per the original plan, I basically had to resign myself to the idea of counting down to midnight on my own.

Then we met a guy. He was a waiter at the beach side restaurant, and always worked the breakfast and lunch shift. In truth we met him the first day we arrived but we didn't chat all that much or learn his name until much later in our stay, when the resort got much busier (after Christmas and approaching new years) and was jam packed full of families who got up much earlier than we would consider, and therefore occupied all of the chairs by the pool, and we would end up in loungers by the beach. He was a rugby player in-season, cute enough and was flirty and chatty without being slimy. There’s also something super appealing about a guy who checks on you regularly to make sure you’re ok, brings you whatever you ask for, and throws in a little bit of added naughtiness by being seriously attentive to you to the detriment of other guests. Eventually, he asked me out for New Years Eve (no pressure huh?) and I was lacking any better options, so that was that.

Beach side, hanging out. I'm sure RugbyWaiter will be stopping by soon.

Now before I go on, it’s important to tell you that I’m not a fan of resolutions and am not one to make them to start off the end of the year. I feel like life already presents too many opportunities to fail and feel bad about yourself that I don’t need to feel like crap because I've screwed up by Jan 3^rd. Instead, I've been working a running list of things I’m just generally going to try to do differently. They’re not steadfast rules or promises, but more like things I’m going to try to keep in mind, in a low pressure environment whereby all ‘goofs’ will be cause for a little laugh and will cause absolutely no abuse targeting my emotional or psychological well being. It’s all predicated on the idea that true insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result (thanks Einstein!). So, I will probably let you in on more of the list as we go along, but for now, let’s start with some of the basics:

Non-rule #1: I’m going to generally try to be nicer to myself.

Non- rule #2:  No more dating 25 year olds. I feel like I've been dating 25 year olds for approximately the last 10 years. I keep getting older but the guys stay the same age. I've clearly been doing something wrong.

This becomes relevant to this story because on New Years Eve, as I’m chatting once again to RugbyWaiter and trying to figure out where we will go to countdown to midnight, the conversation eventually leads to him asking me how old I think he is.

“I hope you’re 30” I said with an optimistic smile.

He just laughed at my apparent ridiculousness.

“26?” Was my counter offer.

“Close” he said.

“Then you have to be 25”.

Which, of course he was. Because that’s my life.

“Ya, so, I’m 31, and I have a new rule about dating 25 year olds, which is that I can’t”

He laughed once again, slightly nervously as he started to realize I wasn't kidding.

As luck would have it, he got called away by his boss and I didn't stick around to talk it out any more, and instead welcomed 2013 on my own, in my really comfy bed in my really chilly room, with the tv on and some room service… and it was an awesome decision.

A fruity toast to good decisions