Katie looked out the window once more, she just couldn’t believe it ― she’d done it again. How was she supposed to live with this? How was she supposed to be accepted in society when she clearly couldn’t commit? Was she to be mocked forever? Was this even her fault? No, it clearly wasn’t. Why couldn’t they just be short? If they were, she wouldn’t have this problem. Or, perhaps, she would: simply because if they were all short, that would become the new “long.”

Ugh, it was no use, this constant struggle with series. Why would she even begin a series if, after all these years, she knew she was incapable of finishing them. Really, she’d only ever finished The Hunger Games, Firelight, and Uglies, all exactly three books long. Or were they? Oh, that’s right, she’d forgotten, she hadn’t really read Extras, and therefore hadn’t exactly finished the Uglies series. That was it then: she’d only ever finished two series.

This doesn’t seem so bad, but consider all the ones she had left unfinished: Guardians of Ga’Hoole, The Last Dragon Chronicles, The Heroes of Olympus, Icemark Chronicles, Starters, The Giver Quartet―although this was a special case, she told herself, since she read the first book, and was unaware that this was a series until years had gone by―and countless others that she had, most likely, forgotten. She wasn’t even going to mention the Inheritance Cycle, which she had tried to read three times before―each a year apart―and gotten stuck in the same part of book three every time.

Recently, she’d even noticed this issue spreading to her television habits: she never finished catching up with Supernatural or Vikings, but she assured herself that it wasn’t that big a problem yet. She was caught up with Sherlock (BBC), although she still needed to watch the new season. Still, she was doing well, watching House every night―three more seasons, and she could catch up on Sherlock.

She was still preoccupied, though, knowing how this was the way the problem always began; she’d forget to catch up or buy the next novel for a while, and then she wouldn’t remember enough to finish the series without restarting it. It annoyed her profoundly that her commitment issue wasn’t even due to a lack of interest.

The problem didn’t lie solely in her commitment issues either, as she insisted that spoilers (from Wikipedia pages) would tell her neither the full, detailed course of events nor the author’s style. This added to her self-imposed torture, since she refused to look up what happened after the spot at which she had stopped. It also prevented her from simply researching what she had already seen before, in order to continue from where she left off, since she might discover that so-and-so dies on page 120 of book five. She scoffed―she had learned that lesson when she searched whether House was going to have a ninth season. Now, she dealt with it the best way she could, but she knew what was coming, and it haunted her. In other words, her incredible curiosity to the conclusion of a series was overcome by her fear of finding out the future without all the details provided by the original source.

She tried to push away the dire thoughts that she would never know what happened with the owls of Ga’Hoole. Maybe she wasn’t incorrigible―she’d finished a lot of movie series, after all. Deep inside, however, she knew that her success in that regard was only due to her family, with whom she watched a movie every weekend at the movie theater.

Sighing, she looked outside, not really focusing on anything specific. She just couldn’t believe that she had left another bitter testament to torment her forevermore. All of a sudden, the sound of fireworks rang out. A new year had begun. Distracted, she made a toast to herself and drank a sip of water. “New year, new me,” she whispered to herself. A smile touched her lips. Maybe…. Maybe that should be her New Year’s Resolution. Yes, it made sense, finish the series she had begun, and read nothing else until that was accomplished. In that moment, however brief, it was all perfect, yet, the inevitable curse of the unattainable New Year’s Resolutions lingered. Would she succeed in fulfilling her goal? Only time would tell.