Category: Journal

The year’s end is closing in faster than I realized, and it only just today hit me how little time I have to prepare.

I’ve always been weary of setting up any New Year’s resolutions for myself. Part of me thinks it’s pointless not because resolving to change, do better, end or begin new habits or believing in fresh starts, clean slates, or new beginnings is pointless, but because the date we choose to do so is so arbitrary.

Of course any of us can change or begin again every day and we can try again whenever we fail, but by March we’ll all have given up and it’ll be another nine months at least before we reflect and resolve again.

So, I don’t really believe that January 1st holds some mystical power or that my resolutions will fare any better just because the calendar year has changed over but I still make my list anyway and I still hope a new version of myself will emerge, the one I have wanted to be since the last time my resolutions failed.

I tend to think of resolution setting as a numbers game, setting up an impossible number of intentions knowing that although many of them will fall by the wayside or end up on the back burner there will necessarily, by fact of volume, be one or two come next December 31st that I can count as successes.

It’s been a slow and painful year but I have been strong—we all have—and I’ve met another side of myself, many sides if I’m honest, that I never knew existed. Some versions I liked, some not so much, but all I have accepted. Each aspect was given space, and each provided valuable insight in turn.

I’d love to take what I’ve learned and make the next year one of even greater endurance and resilience. I’d like to focus on self-care and in more areas than just emotional and physical. I’d like to find ways to care for my social, spiritual, financial, professional, and personal life.

I’m resolving in general to take a more well-rounded approach to my well-being going forward and through pre-planning, recording and reflecting, boundary setting, and all the willpower I can summon, 2021 will be a much better year.

Today I am doing nothing, and a lot of it. I woke up early, just to do nothing and then the nothing tired me out so much I needed a nap. Now I am doing nothing again and have plans for very little more from here until bedtime. It’s glorious, all this nothing. I’m hopeful I’ll have more of it tomorrow too.

Doing nothing looks like reading all the articles and listening to all the podcasts I’ve been saving up. It looks like reading and writing in my journal. It’s reflecting on all the little notes I’ve taken these past weeks, scheduling and editing blog posts, and taking more notes on the new things I’d like to write and share. It looks like me, camped out on the couch with my laptop, my books and notebooks, pens and pencils, and plenty of pillows, blankets, and cup after cup of coffee.

Later there may be a small to do list, a few chores and some small errands perhaps, but nothing stressful, nothing demanding.

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Wintery weather is rolling in tonight. The winds are whipping around the house tonight, and the cold can be felt creeping through cracks unseen. It’s nights like these when home feels much more fragile and I much more vulnerable than I feel on warmer, brighter days and nights.

Still, these nights are made for huddling close to those you love under piles of warm and soft blankets. There is strength and comfort in that, too. We’re safe. Even if all the fences, trees, and these walls themselves cave in, we have each other, the greatest protection any human can have.

With the break from work and the ongoing holiday chaos and stress, it hardly feels like Monday at all, which sounds nice in theory, but the work week and my old routine were reasons to get up, get moving, and get shit done. Now I’m feeling a little lost and desperately trying to get back to my routine.

I’ve just been too tired after days of shipping and shopping to do anything for myself. There’s too much to do to get to bed on time, and not enough time spent sleeping to wake up early enough.

Last night I didn’t even realize that the weekend was ending and completely forgot to change my alarms over. I slept in more than I meant to, but I’m not too disappointed in myself. I needed the rest and a whole lot more, if I’m honest.

I’m still battling with my body and walking these stores and malls, worrying over gifts and dates is beginning to take a toll, but the end is in sight and if everything goes smoothly today I should be through with those stores and malls, shipping and wrapping all and free to rest all the way through to the holiday.

And I plan to take full advantage of it too! With Christmas falling on a Friday this year, I’ll be heading right back to work and my old schedule with nothing but a short weekend in between. The pressure of the holidays will be replaced with the pressure of meeting work expectations almost seamlessly.

The weather has turned wintry again. I’d hoped to work outside a little or fit a walk in before the temperature dropped, but the morning warmth never arrived and the clouds carried too much gloom. The cold kept me inside, bored and irritable, and time slowed to a crawl and I grew more and more anxious to return home.

I did try to keep a positive attitude through the grey day. I’m still feeling good physically and any way a boring day is better than a bad day, right? I tired, but I didn’t get far with that. There was just not enough excitement, laughter, progress or accomplishment to boost my mood.

I think I’m just missing the warmth and sunshine from the first half of the week. More than that, I’m longing for the days when I could leave work and walk over to the coffee shop to read or write for a while before anyone even knew I was gone. I can’t wait until Spring, or the coronavirus vaccine, or whenever the world might open up again and those third spaces I hardly used and always took for granted can offer my that escape I need.

I love my home, and work is never as bad as it could be or as bad as I think it is, but I need more than that routine. I need a place that puts me among other people, where I feel both part of the community and apart. A place that offers a new perspective.

This morning is off to a nice, smooth start. I got up on time and made it through my routine easily. I’ve started thinking of each day as beginning the night before and sticking to a bedtime routine that helps me prepare that included going over my to do list, getting my bags and clothes ready, and spending some time cleaning. This week my stress levels are notably lower, and I’m spending less time laying awake at night with worry.

I think getting back into my daily meditation groove is helping too. I didn’t realize how much I had missed, or needed, those 10 to 15 minutes of focusing on body and breath every morning. It’s hard not to beat myself up over the months’ long lapse but I’m countering it with plenty of praise for taking up the practice again.

Symptom-wise, I only continue to improve. Some side effect of the new meds is joint pain and headaches, but even those discomforts are getting better with time. Every day my energy and drive increase and so does my ability to find purpose and joy.

The doctor mentioned that a big contributor to my fatigue may be a depletion serotonin levels. I had no idea that so much of the body’s supply of the “happy chemical” was made and utilized in and by the gut. I’ve been advised to manage my emotions and rebuild endurance through time, rest, and plenty of self-care and forgiveness. The journey so far is easier than expected. It helps to have so much to be grateful for.

This morning is adhering a lot closer to plan than the last few have. I’m up before the sun, my favorite time of day as long as I get to spend it sipping coffee and reading in bed next to a sunny window rather than stumbling through the beginning of the workday routine, and from here things are only looking up. I have nowhere to be and nothing much at all I have to do.

These days, these not quite work days but not quite weekends, are quickly becoming a large source of peace and fulfillment for me. I’m concerned about how hard it’s going to be to return to a full-time work schedule after the turn of the new year, and even more so after the corona virus vaccine becomes widely available and distributed.

The pandemic has really put into focus what matters, and at the top of that list is time. It’s become clear how much of it I have been giving up, how much we’ve all been giving up. Forty hours—and often more!—a week spent doing what? I love my job, but it isn’t for me. I don’t do it because I love it; I do it to survive.

I have to give up my life in order to live? It’s all so contradictory, depressing, and, the longer the pandemic wears on, infuriating.

I want the pandemic to end, but I do hope life doesn’t just go back to normal after it’s safe to leave our homes and be within six feet of each other again. I don’t want to go back to working so many hours a week. I don’t want to go back to feeling guilty for staying home when I’m sick. I don’t want to go back to long meetings, and crowded offices, and impossible expectations.

Sadly, I suspect everything in the workplace will go back to the way it was and faster than I can adjust physically or emotionally. People are just too happy with what is familiar even if a little change, uncomfortable adjustment, and imagination is all it takes to give a world with a little more balance, peace, and, most importantly, time.