Dialogue: It's hard being stuck in a hiatus

Now that Christmas is over and the dishes are all done and the tinsel's gone back in its box, I feel strangely aimless and wonder, what do I do? There's a nameless void that cries out to be filled.

I write a few thank-you notes, play with my prezzies and look around for some task to distract me. It's an odd situation and it's not that I'm bored.

It's just difficult to settle to anything in the hiatus between Christmas and New Year.

I expect that's why resolutions are made - to fill those gaps the pre-Christmas To Do lists have left. After all, who can help it, at the end of December, reflecting on what has been and hoping for better?

Now that I'm older and, I hope, wiser I've given up asking impossible or unnecessary things of myself. Dieting is boring, exercise will happen if it wants, and as for love, it'll come when it's ready.

Instead, then, I'll use my resolutions more like wishes and push for national and even global improvements. World peace would be nice, as would be an end to starvation. But perhaps I'd be best to start small.

Nationally, then, I'd like us not to take sport so seriously. I was struck this year by how much the country's emotional well-being is tied up with performances on the field.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to reroute some of our mental health spending into sport - it might cut certain types of depression or aggression by half. Also, rather than berate our sports people for the losses that do occur, we could consider their successes as pretty impressive for a country the size of New Zealand.

I'd also be pleased with our Government if, aside from decriminalising marijuana, it was to legislate for New Zealand to become wholly organic. The rewards of both moves would certainly be felt positively.

My favourite idea, though, is to reduce unemployment by offering incentives to work shorter weeks, thus providing more jobs and raising everybody's quality of life.

Best of all, we could spend all the money made and saved through these changes on better healthcare and education or protecting children from abuse, the instances of which were shamefully epidemic this year.

But at this time of year there's no point getting started on my Schemes for a Better New Zealand - it's tricky to get people fired up about social engineering when the question on most people's lips is, "How was your Christmas?" followed closely by, "What are you doing for New Year's Eve?"

It is, after all, the true new millennium - all that fuss last year was just a false alarm. Consequently there's a lot of pressure to be somewhere extra special when the clock strikes midnight for the last time in AD 2000.

Start the new century how you intend to continue on the right note, at the right place, with the right crowd; the mere thought makes my blood pressure rise. I wonder, is it too late to set up a support group to match the undecided with destination suggestions?

I know I could go to The Gathering and I'm sure I'd be happy if I did - all those like-minded people collected together, juggling fire, hugging trees and cavorting.

Then there's the option of sailing to the Bay of Islands but, once on board, if I had second thoughts, short of swimming there'd be no way of changing my mind.

There's a big group of friends going to a bach in the Far North, which does seem like an appealing scenario: good food and good music, not to mention good people all lovin' it up by the sea.

There's a vineyard thing in the Hawkes Bay, the riot at Whangamata or staying in Auckland and dancing till dawn. There's also Times Square, the Champs Elysee, the Pyramids and the Highlands. It's not like there's any shortage of choice.

What I have to remember, if I look past the hype, is that it's just another day in the year and it won't be the end of the world if I haven't arranged myself anywhere too grand.

So, who knows? Perhaps I'll just opt for a nice early night and let the millennium take care of itself. If there's one thing I've learned in my now 30 years, it's that with or without me, the world keeps on turning.