Goals // Week 16: Another One Around the Sun

This week is a new beginning of sorts, one of many that come every year. It feels right that my 35th year of life should begin on a Monday, though for the last month Mondays have meant very little. Still, Mondays are our chances to start again every week and this Monday I get to start the first week of a new trip around the sun. I’m excited, but it’s a somber and focused kind of excitement. I’m starting a new chapter but I’d like to write a little more of this one myself rather than simply reading along waiting for the plot to unravel and the twists to surprise me.

So, this week, the first week, I will:

Write one blog post every day. I’d like for them to coincide with the WordPress Discover Prompts but I’m utterly incapable of writing anything short and that means some pieces can’t be wrapped up before the sun goes down. So, if I can’t finish a post before the day is up, I give myself permission to save it as a draft and pick it up again later. I am committed to sharing something for each day of April, even if it must come late. The point is to make a real effort, to get up and try. That’s all.

Read a little every day. With so much writing in the schedule now there will be less time for reading but I have finished the longest book of my entire reading career and can confidently move on to regular sized novels and my Penguin Little Black Classics set of which each book hardly exceeds 50 pages. Bonus: Finish this list of Feminist Writing.

Get back to regularly updating my to-do list, logbook, and schedule. Time seems to be compressing in on each side of the present and the days are harder to remember and to plan. I need a schedule to orient myself, to get a hold of time, to get things done, to remember how I want to live, and in order to do that I have to take the time to sit down and map out not just what is to come but what has passed too. To give my mind proof that though time is always slip, slip, slipping away I can make use of it as it passes.

 Enjoy my birthday. Being stuck inside during a global pandemic and a snowstorm is not the ideal way to spend a birthday but it is what it is and there is still so much to be grateful for and to celebrate. My wife, my best friend, my partner, is right here with me and there has never been an end to the joy we’ve been able to find in one another. It’ll be a good day if I decide that it is and what I have is not only good enough but a great blessing.

Work out. My body has been falling apart for years now, but the inherent inactivity that comes with social isolation is resulting in further joint stiffness and increased pain. The only remedy is to move through the hurt and eventually the body will adjust, become more pliable and less resistant. I have everything I need for a good home workout the only thing missing is my willpower. There are no more excuses to make. Bonus: Go one day this week without a sugary snack. It’s a start.

Practice more self-care. It’s becoming harder to remember to do the basics when you have nowhere to go and no one to impress, but the purpose of self-care is not to impress others but to provide a sense of calm, comfort, and care for yourself. Self-care can help you self-sooth. Self-care can distract the mind. Self-care can help you begin the day with focus or end it with peace. Self-care lifts the spirits and energizes the body, and in these times it’s more important than ever.

This week I will not give in to the draw of inactivity. So much of what our bodies crave is not only bad for us but counter to what it is we really need. My anxiety and the creeping depression and loneliness are making it hard to stay motivated and focused. All I want to do is binge eat and binge watch. All I want to do is nothing but I know that isn’t really what I want and it’s far from what will make me feel better. This week I will not let time slip away. I will not reach for what is mindless or numbing. I will not let the walls close in.

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Photo by thomas van der vennet on Unsplash