< by Jill >

On January 1, 2004 I wrote 12 resolutions for the coming year. My foremost ambition — to end things with my ne’er-do-well high-school beau — seemed heartbreaking but essential. In the past two years, he had ensnared me in a good bit of trouble …

There was the time he asked me to wrap masking tape around plastic cups filled with powder. Little did I know, I helped him create cherry bombs that would later torch a field. And then there was the time he offered me a glass of water that smacked of pine trees and drain cleaner (it was gin). He deserved to get ditched.

Dovetailing this decision, I resolved to get a good boyfriend at college.

I wasn’t successful my freshman year, but my sophomore year yielded an 8-month relationship that, once again, taught me to stop chasing bad boys. Tear-soaked and heartsick, I ricocheted to the opposite extreme and found love in the form of a staunch-republican-christian-conservative. From this I learned the danger of dogma: It forbids open conversation, which is the lifeblood of love. And in the absence of open conversation, the relationship fizzled out and so did college.

Two years later, an old college friend visited me in Chicago to kick off the new year. We talked the whole night through, reminiscing about the campus newspaper and catching up on lost time. Six years after resolving to find a college beau, I had finally done it — and just this Monday, we celebrated our two-year anniversary.

Take heart if your resolutions have been deferred — some take more than a year to accomplish.

Nate and Jill on New Year’s Eve 2012/13. Read Nate’s side of the story here: http://wp.me/p2FJLF-yn