Every year we say “Happy New Year” but isn’t it really “Happy Newest Year?” Last year was a new year and the year before that was a new year so this year happens to be the newest.

OK, with that off my chest, now we can get down to what it means. It means we make promises to ourselves —they’re called resolutions. And like everyone else, I make promises to myself in the first days of this newest year. Same old promises but new again for another year:

Promise one: For sure I’ll lose weight.

Promise two: For sure I will exercise regularly.

Promise three: For sure I will have more patience.

Number one and two shouldn’t be that hard. Mid-January I will be receiving the gift of new titanium knees, and soon I will be able to excercise regularly and lose weight, so the first two promises should be easy to keep, but number three is the really hard one for me. Right now I can hear those who know me saying, “I didn’t know she had a problem with patience.”

I don’t have a problem with small children not being able to make up their mind which candy to take, nor do I have a problem with a dog that can’t decide if it’s better out or in. However, I do have a problem with some people’s actions.

Here’s an example of the first time I noticed my lack of patience: Two people are waiting for the bus. They’ve been standing there more than ten minutes and the bus arrives.

One lady moves ahead to get on the bus and all this time she has been waiting she could have had her bus fare out or in her pocket but no…she sets down her purse on the seat, rummages around for her coin purse, slowly pulls it out, straightens her waistband, turns back to the bus driver and then opens it with a click.

She then looks at the receptor for the money and realizes she needs a dollar bill. She turns back to her purse, pulls out a wallet, extracts a bill, moves back to the receptor, puts the bill in, watches as it disappears then turns to the driver and says, “Good morning”, turns back to her purse and puts in the wallet, closes the purse, fixes her waist band again, picks up the purse and moves to take her seat. Now I understand people not knowing about the fare, etc., but this woman did this every day.

I know because I was the second person at the bus stop for almost a year. I tried reminding her in advance that the bus was coming and we “needed to have our money ready.” This never worked either. So I slowly lost my patience and I never seemed to find it again.

This year I have a plan. I will relax and stop sweating the small things — don’t laugh, I can do this. People that drive too slowly in front of me will only make me smile and remind me that they must be retired and really are just enjoying the view.

I will take a deep breath (and again relax) when I am in the grocery store behind a person that takes one item out of their cart and carefully places it on the conveyor belt and watches it move forward, then turns back to take one more thing out of their cart and they repeat the process.

When I make a funny remark and realize the person I’m talking to is wearing hearing aids and seems only to hear intermittent words, I will slowly and carefully repeat what I’ve said (a little louder). Then I will, with a smile, explain what I meant, because the moment has passed and now it is no longer funny. I don’t have a solid plan for me while playing Bridge but I’m working on it.

So if you see me with my teeth clenched and a weird smile pasted on my lips, you will know I am not only practicing my new patience, I am enjoying it.

OK — it will take a little practice but I know I can do it, right?

Donna Lee Anderson can be reached at welltoldtales@aol.com.