50 Words

Broken Promises

Thrifty Words Theme Challenge #19: Resolutions

Several hundred years ago, back in the 1990s, I made the only New Year’s resolution I’ve ever kept. I resolved to never, ever, upon pain of receiving chain mail letters, to make another New Year’s resolution.

It worked.

I have neither made another resolution nor received any more chain mail letters. You know the ones. Unless you’re a millennial. I think email killed the chain letters.

For the younger crowd, chain mail letters were handwritten letters, usually sent by younger people (under 20), promising good luck, romance, and wealth. But only if the body of the letter was copied (by hand) word for word and ten names added to the bottom of the letter. When you received your letter, you would copy the letter, cross out your name, and add 9 more. You were supposed to send letters to the 9 other people.

Sometimes these letters, when sent by unscrupulous adults or companies, emotionally manipulated people into sending money. Send $1.00 to nine people and nine people will send you dollars. This is known as a pyramid scheme.

The chain mail letters I received were much more innocent than that. Instead of emotional manipulation, they were more of a popularity contest. As such, they could be used as a form of bullying.

I hated them. I still dutifully kept the chain alive.

Until my cousin, Andrea Meyer sent me a chain letter promising doom and gloom if ever the chain was continued (beyond that last, promissory letter).

This gave me the idea for the last ever New Year’s resolution. I’ve stuck to both promises. There are many, many more promises (to myself) I’ve broken. Fitness promises (why wait till the New Year? There’s no time like now), addiction promises (I’ll cut down on caffeine, nicotine, and sugar), organizational promises (I’m going to clean and organize this area of my house AND KEEP IT THAT WAY), financial promises (but I really don’t spend money on anything besides bills and food so this one never works even a little bit), and creativity promises (I’ll write, paint, draw, craft every day).

One of the biggest, most frequent broken promises to myself is, “I promise to keep a daily journal.” My house is littered with the skeletons of half-filled journals, diaries, and notebooks. Sometimes I organize them into one spot. But then clutter happens so they get shifted from closet to drawer and back again.

I’ve learned (am learning) to stop making promises to myself or risk beating myself over the head with the shame stick. It’s a big stick. Like Mickey Mouse’s mops and buckets, it seems to multiply and keep working on its own.

This week’s 50 Word Theme Challenge #19: Resolutions hopes to make the promise of creativity, stimulating mind and body to create works of art in exactly 50 words. Do you make resolutions at the beginning of a new year? Do you keep those promises? What happens when you don’t? Have promises made to you been broken? Let your mind wander. Resolve to write something in exactly 50 words.

Without further ado, the 19th 50 words Theme Challenge is

Resolutions: 50 Words. GO!

Before I send you to the submission guidelines, I have a request. TBI loves to promote our writers. If you would like your 50 Word stories pushed like inner-city heroin, please leave your social media handles at the bottom of your piece. Feel free to follow us on Twitter @TheBadInfluenc7. Follow the editors of Thrifty Words Theme Challenge, Jonica Bradley and Marla Bishop on Twitter here @lynn_jonica and @tulipchickuk.

Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly fifty words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ ‘and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.)

Please use the kicker 50 WORDS and ‘Thrifty Words Challenge #19: Resolutions’ as your subtitle and submit by 12 pm EST / 5 pm GMT on Friday, 8 January. All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the following morning at 6 am EST / 11 am GMT.

A reminder: we will only publish one story per author to the roundup. If you submit more than one story, it is most likely that the first story submitted will be chosen for the roundup. You may submit 50 Word stories outside of the theme challenge anytime. They will be published in the Thrifty Words section but not included in the theme challenge roundup.