34) New Year's Resolutions

Not sure if it is too late to submit a New Year's resolution, but I do have a couple of things I would like to work on this year.  That is, a couple of things outside of the universal resolutions seen on most New Year's lists (working out, eating better, fewer hangovers per week etc...).  

1) I would like to be more apart of the family that helped raise me.  Since I left home at the age of 17 I have pretty much not looked back.  There was a certain level of training I put my parents through, since I was the first of their children to leave the nest.  I trained them not to expect calls but maybe once a month. I trained them to expect visits twice a year, one weekend during the summer and one at Christmas.  And during that weekend a particular family member could expect to see me 2 hours at most.  I forgot most birthdays and avoided family issues.  Since leaving home my mom has encountered problems of her own; problems that have on a major level taken control of how she lives on a day to day basis.  The few times a month we spoke on the phone she would tell me how she could not wait for me to move back to Houston.  Each time she told me this I assured her I was never moving back to Houston.  After graduating college I moved to Dallas.  A few years later I moved to Tyler, where I bought my first home.  It was then she realized I was not moving to Houston and her hopes changed slightly.  She would say to me, "I'm gonna sell my town home, save up some money and move to whatever city you're living in.  I have to get out of here."

A couple of years went by.  I moved from Tyler to Dallas.  One of the last conversations I had with my mother she said, "I finally got my town home on the market.  As soon as I sell it I am going to move to Tyler where I can be near Stephen.  I am going to buy a nice home on the outskirts of Tyler where I can have as many dogs as I want and Cody can move in with me if he wants."  As usual, I answered her with support and understanding.  I said, "That sounds nice."  

I have trained my mother well.  She no longer hopes to attain my attention and affection, and has instead moved to my younger brother.  The next in line.  I am a little sad because I do not want to be the one to let her down, and I certainly am not looking to push responsibility onto my brother.  Instead, I am going to make a half-assed resolution to become more involved with my family, and hope on some level I can stick to it better than I have stuck to working out, eating better and having fewer hangovers.

2) I would like to be more fun.  Generally I am a serious person.  I like watching serious movies. I like reading slower-developing books.  I do not care for hanging out at bars, dancing, or talking about what is going on in the reality tv world.  Too many times I fail to see the humor in crappy horror movies, or the way Jason Caruso takes his sunglasses off and delivers the cheesiest/stupidest line ever on CSI Miami.  I would like to change this.  I would like to become more fun.  I would like to go dancing and not be the guy sitting at the table drinking and waiting for the night to be over.  I want to be the guy on the dance floor having, and being fun.  I want to rent a handful of horror movies and make a night out of laughing and being scared by the stupid movies.  I want to dress up for Halloween this year and not be embarrassed about looking dumb (even though I must admit that each time I dress up for Halloween I look really dumb, or borderline gay). I want to cook a nice dinner and not insist on cleaning the dishes before we move on to the night's activities. I want to watch my dog tear into a chew toy without immediately following her around picking up the stuffing she leaves on the ground...and on and on.