I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
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.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.”
— Arthur C. Clarke (via Dense Discovery)
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.
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.
I’ve never been a big fan of the Christmas season. Oh, there are things I like about the holiday. I like the lights, and the food, and the time spent with family, but all the shopping, shipping, and stressing about gifts and cooking is just more time spent away from the things I enjoy doing for me.
Instead of giving in to disappointment, I’m trying to think of these weeks as time outside of time, a break from productivity and passions to get a little perspective before the new year begins. It’s helping, but I miss my books, my journal, my blog, my courses. I miss sitting and silence.
‘Tis the season for giving of the self, I know, but with the pandemic and so much of life and tradition put on hold or cancelled entirely, it’s hard to get into a festive mood and a half holiday or less hardly feels worth the effort.
I don’t mean to be a grinch. I wish the season found me in better spirits, but this year has been too hard on me—too hard on us all!—and I can’t seem to find my holiday cheer, or perhaps it can’t find me. My hope is that come Christmas morning when all that stress is behind me and there is nothing left but to enjoy good food and time with family, I’ll finally find the Christmas spirit that eludes me now.
Observe the movement of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
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.
Lisa Marie Blair 