Day One

Over the summer, DC Comics took the incredible step of resetting all 52 of its continuing series and starting them all over again with issue No. 1.

Superman and Batman may have been around since the 1930s, but DC is scrubbing everything that’s happened in their comic universe over the decades and beginning anew.

I don’t know how comic book fans are reacting to this plan, but it sounds like a great idea to me.

I have gone through so much upheaval over the last few months that I’ve decided it’s time for me to start my life all over again at Day One.

And I’m doing this right now. I can’t afford to wait until New Year’s Day to make any resolutions—my life needs a radical reboot ASA-freaking-P.

I’m in a new place, we finally sold the family home, and I’m back at the gym five torturous months after my back went out and took my right leg with it.

There was a time when I thought I would never heal, that the incredible pain in my shin would be with me forever. The agony started one Friday night in July--just as we started clearing out the house and I was searching for a new apartment. The timing was perfectly hideous.

I also thought we’d never finish the clean-up. Every weekend I’d look at all that…stuff and wonder if we’d ever get down.

But the mission’s been accomplished and I’m feeling better. I’m not a hundred percent—still getting a tingling in my foot--and I have to do a daily series of core exercise for the rest of my natural life, but I’ve made a lot of progress and I’m very thankful.

I’m sure all of things coming together is just a coincidence, but I’m going to treat these events like a screaming, 20-megaton message from the Universe that says “start over from Day One!”

Look! Up in the Sky!

I have to change the way I think, shake off this negativity that’s been part of my make-up for far too long. I have to bury the past like it’s nuclear waste. It’s time to replace agonizing with action and worry with work.

I have to do things I’ve never done before, see new places and new faces. I’ve got to stop playing it so safe all the time.

Of course, I’ve made scores of these vows, promises, declarations, proclamations, and resolutions to change, only to see them go south as I returned to my old ways.

To be honest, I’m not sure how my Day One plan is any different from the other times, except that it’s a month ahead of the traditional date.

If I were still in my old frame of mind I’d say that I started early so I could quit early, but it’s Day One, so I ain't thinking that way no more.

I put a “Day One” sign on my bathroom mirror and on the wall of my cubicle at work so I can remind myself that every day is a chance to make things better.

I wheezed through my first boxing class in months on Thursday, but I wouldn’t allow myself to get down over this. It’s Day One, I told myself. Pretend this is the first time you ever walked into the gym.

On Saturday I took a boot camp class, where you work with weights and a stepper until you’re ready to die—at least I was. I’d never taken the class before, so I was glad I had done it, but I’m sore from working dormant muscles. I’ll bet Superman never had this problem.

This Day One project is going to be tough. I see that I really have to monitor my mind, lest I slip back into a pile of ugly thoughts or rotten memories. There’s more to change than just vowing you’re going to do it. I have to totally rewire my noodle.

It's a long shot, but if it pays off, I know that I'll be a lot happier. And I won’t even need a cape.