Selective amnesia

Netnet Camomot

OF course, there was champagne, with the youngest grandchild making toasts in between sips.

With Realization 101 written all over 2015, the wish was to have selective amnesia for 2016. You have had a good start anyway in the Department of Forgetting.

Forgot to buy torotot. Forgot to make noise. Even forgot to honk the cars’ horns when the clock struck twelve.

Instead, the family was busy defending the bro’s pet dog against the Dark Side. OK, the dark side of firecrackers and fireworks, with U2’s “New Year’s Day” hopelessly trying to drown out the racket.

Almost forgot, too, to buy fruits, 13 round ones, and somehow also forgetting the ready-to-display baskets filled with 13 fruits that were selling like hotcakes at supermarkets. But where’s the joy in that? Pick a basket, join the long and winding lines to the cashier, and that’s it for last-minute pre-New Year preps?

So, you texted the family driver to please go to Cogon Market–yes, the center of Cagayan de Oro’s traffic woes–where, amidst the mob and chaos, he surprisingly managed to harvest a melon, five pieces of rotten lanzones, ten pieces of malnourished grapes, a solo pineapple, a hard-as-aock chico, an overripe pomelo, three pieces of tambis, an orange orange, a green orange, two mangos, a tisa, apple, and a yellow round thingie with its bottom scooped out so it could sit comfortably on top of the melon. In other words, an incomplete fruit, only 2/3 of a fruit, for a total of 12 and 2/3 fruits to welcome the New Year. Gosh. If ever good luck finally knocks on your door, don’t ask anymore where that one significant fraction went. You: Murag kulang lagi. Luck: Ah, hello, 2/3?!

But should it be 13 pieces? 13 kinds? Or 12? And are tambis and mango round? Hmmm. You’re definitely buying 13–12?–pieces of seedless grapes for the next New Year’s Eve. That’s it.

And of course it’s not officially New Year until you’ve feasted on Fablues’ potato salad! Which was the most difficult dish to order. As a Fablues fan should know by now, ordering for Christmas and New Year should be done months in advance, preferably right after the latest New Year’s Day. Oh well. Lesson learned.

But here’s the catch. Once you’ve been lectured–yes, lectured–by your wellness coach about calories and you see a feast’s effect on body weight the morning after, the awareness may take away the fun out of eating the food groups you used to love. You’re imagining the two pounds you’re already gaining while eating, and that’s not a comforting thought at all. You could have lost two pounds more. Instead, you gain two and now have to lose that on top of the pounds you were trying to lose. It may sound complicated, like that Facebook status, but it’s as simple as picking that fruit basket at the supermarket instead of going around Cogon Market looking for fruits.

There are some weight-loss wishers who have chosen to have no social life for at least six months to avoid this temptation of eating food outside of their meal plans. They could eat again, anyway, once they’ve reached their ideal weight. By then, they should have learned what works for them or not, and could already estimate the quality and quantity of food to ingest without gaining back the pounds lost.

People who are going through much personal stress should think twice before embarking on a weight loss plan since that’s additional stress for them. But at least one wellness coach believes otherwise, that it’s advisable to be aware of one’s physical condition and what he must do to improve it because it’s during the worst of times that he may turn to emotional eating.

There’s this saying, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” Try telling the world your goals for the year, and it will respond someday, somehow, blessing you with pleasant surprises. And that’s also true for weight loss if that’s your New Year’s resolution.

For me, though, the wish-ko-lang to lose weight happened on July 17, 2015, and the teacher appeared three months later on Oct. 15.

The response and answer to your wishes are usually different from what you expected. Much like the shock you feel when someone betrays you. But then, that’s another story, and since the New Year requires a renewal of vows to focus on good vibes, such negative memories are better left behind in 2015 and reclassified as learning experiences.

New Year’s Eve gives you the feeling of having the whole world at your feet as you say goodbye to the old and hello to the new. Life should not be allowed to give you limitless pain and hurt and sorrow, and so, there’s the New Year to help you start all over again.

Toasts for the New Year are like prayers, your wish-ko-lang in between sips of champagne. Having started on one wish during the last quarter of the old year, you’re now looking forward to continuing it in the new year. Well, let’s drink to that! Cheers!

And then, there’s your wellness coach reminding you to drink more water, not champagne. Oh, well.