dreary daydreams

ten; self-love

AFTER
January 1, 2016
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"HAPPY NEW YEARS!"

With her brother on one side of her and her sister on the other, Clementine raised her plastic cup in the air and, along with the rest, happily drank her cider.

For the entirety of the night, Clementine and her family crowded around the T.V to watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve show. With Brendan coming home from university, the family had kept their disagreements and complaints to themselves-- for the most part-- and came together like the family they never really were, full of smiles and laughter and love. Clementine relished in the warm feeling that bubbled within her and smiled around the lid of her cup.

"Brendan! Now tell me again what your professor said? About the essay you wrote?"

Clementine glanced to the left of her and watched as her father heartily clapped Brendan on the back, his pride radiating from the pearly-white smile he gave.

When Brendan glanced to her, completely annoyed, she returned a half-hearted smile and turned her attention back to the celebration on T.V. She couldn't hear a word.

"Dad, I've told you this story like three times already." 

"Well tell me again!"

"Actually," her mother announced, standing from the leather recliner in which she was sitting. "I think it's time to bring out the Resolution Bowl."

She left the room to retrieve the large glass bowl from the kitchen counter, while her father resumed pestering Brendan about his professor's praise. Brendan told once again how, after reading his astounding essay, the professor agreed that his future was notably looking quite bright. Her father laughed and laughed at this, giddy with the fact that the homosexual disappointment he raised hadn't turned out to be such a disappointment after all.

"That's my son," he bellowed. "That's my boy."

Her very pubescent sister, Ava, scoffed upon hearing this and looked to Clementine with exasperation, the coal-black eyeliner that was crudely drawn around her eyes smudging as she squinted them. Clementine just laughed-- whether with her sister or at her sister, she didn't exactly know-- and dramatically rolled her eyes with her.

Her mother had returned to the living room shortly thereafter. In one hand were five hotel pens from five separate resorts, and in the other was the bowl. She set the bowl on the maroon ottoman with a smile.

"Go ahead," she told them, sitting down once again in the recliner. "Choose."

It was Macy tradition that, every year, the family was to blindly choose a slip of paper from the bowl and write a resolution for that specific person on the back of it. Clementine never minded, not really. Cliche resolutions were always something that kept her mind off her underlying insecurities. For a few days, at least.

Brendan reached into the bowl first, Clementine second, Ava third. Her parents followed, and on the count of 3 they all opened their slips of paper.

Dad was scrawled on her paper in blue pen.

Clementine smiled. She had the perfect resolution. She scrawled it quickly else she forget.