The beginning of a new year is a time for resolution, in every meaning of the word.

RESOLUTION (noun)

1. A decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner
A course of action determined or decided on.
The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination.

The most common association of resolution with the New Year is to write down one’s New Year’s Resolutions. For example, this year I resolve to:
a) get out of debt (and by default, Paul gets this resolution too)
b) get back into to debt but good debt, by purchasing a newer and more reliable vehicle, and also by paying for Paul’s schooling
c) get healthier – both in terms of avoiding illness and in terms of increasing overall fitness
d) be more positive and less cranky with people. I ended 2005 on kind of a sour note after a pretty fabulous year and I don’t really want to do that again.
e) get more sleep – I’m exhausted and only getting more so (this is actually a sub-resolution of resolutions c and d)
f) finish our wedding Thank You cards – which we’re hoping to do before our first anniversary (we’re doing a website with all of our photos on it and sending at least two printed photos with each card, hence the long timeline)

2. The fineness of detail that can be distinguished in an image;
The process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object, closely adjacent optical images, or sources of light;
The ability of a microscope or telescope to measure the angular separation of images that are close together
The act or process of separating or reducing something into its constituent parts: the prismatic resolution of sunlight into its spectral colors.

New Year’s Eve is a time when we put our past under a microscope and examine it closely. We take the beautiful blurry image that is our life and comb through it, analyzing our intentions and wrongs and hurts; poking and prodding at them to see if they still have the impact they did way back when. We stand, crouched with our noses to the weave in the fabric of our lives and examine each thread to see what they led to and where they came from. We peer through the prisms to examine all of the colorful components that make up our lives. Alternatively, we apply rose colored glasses to soften the edges, to back away and make things blurry and beautiful again.

3. The progression of a dissonant tone or chord to a consonant tone or chord (Music).

To break that down into lay-person’s term. To go from a part of a song where the music clashes to a part of the song where it doesn’t. This applies to several parts of New Year’s. Firstly, the singing of Auld Lang Syne, where there is invariably someone who is both drunk and tone-deaf shrieking along at the top of their lungs, resolution happens when the drunk person either falls down or passes out and either way stops singing. Secondly, with my friends, we have two New Year’s Traditions: we burn our regrets, and we hang our hopes and wishes on a tree with bright shiny ribbon. Regrets equate nicely to a dissonant chord, they are things within our lives that clash with the way we wanted things to be. Hopes and wishes are bright and shiny and happy, like a consonant chord. We’re basically hoping that the background music in our lives will stay consonant for the remainder of the coming year.

4. The part of a literary work in which the complications of the plot are resolved or simplified.

A large part of New Year’s is reflecting back on the year past. It is a time when you try to tie up any obligations and resolve the plotlines in your complicated life. This year I accomplished many things that I expected to and many more things that I did not. In 2005, I:
- survived breast reduction surgery
- got a new job
- moved in with Paul
- got married
- won NaNoWriMo (and didn’t hate my story)

So really, 2005 was a combination of beginnings and endings, I emerged from 2005 substantially different than I went in. It was the year of change and stress and incredible happiness and personal accomplishment, and while some of these things were hard, they were still good.

5. Something settled or resolved; the outcome of decision making.

In this way, 2005 is settled and 2006 is forecast. It’s an arbitrary landmark, this end of the year celebration, but it gives us a chance to end a chapter and begin anew, once every 365 days (give or take). We resolve while looking back at what came before, at what we would change in our past, and we resolve while looking forward that we will make changes, that at the end of our cycle we will have less to regret and greater things to hope for in the next cycle.
It continues, on and on, until we reach our final outcome, our final resolution, and we burn our lifelong regrets and tie our hope on the tree.