Here we are, two weeks into January. Behind us, strewn along the short path of a few days, lie resolutions which have already separated themselves from our resolve. If they happen to be your resolutions separated from your resolve, perhaps it’s not too late to go back for them.

Not that you should listen to me. I’m not a New Year’s Resolution kind of guy. I never have been. But I’m writing because I did make a few resolutions for 2019, and they and my resolve have stayed together.

Why? I don’t know. I know I’ve had a little help. I also know I didn’t get too hung up on the word, “new.”

Sometimes we are so quick to leave the past behind, we refuse to realize the simplest of truths. The turning of a new year does nothing to discard the past. The past is present, like a school kid in the front row waiting to be accounted for.

Including it in the day’s roll call, gives us a better shot at seeing the present moment for what it is. My resolutions going into 2019 centered around the loss of Chasen Stevenson. A friend I’ve managed to think of every day.

In doing so I try to be a little more charitable in my humor, a little more business minded in my work, a little more informed on the issues of the day, a little more sensitive to the needs of others, and believe it or not, I try to talk a little less.

In trying to do these things, I try to bring the future a little into today. Altogether, I suppose that is what a resolution is. It’s an effort to bring both the past and the future a little more into the present.

When I’ve been able to do that this past year in my private life, in my time with Shannon, in my times with friends who didn’t know Chasen, and in a few times with those who knew him much better than I, I’ve stumbled surprised into the joy of the continued presence of a friend.

Perhaps to make a resolution work, we need to resign ourselves to being in three places, now.