Tag: 12 23

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.

I can hardly believe it’s Monday already, just two days until Christmas, and just over a week until the new year. My wife and I have just a few small odds and ends left to buy, a couple of small gifts but mostly food and drinks. There’s bacon and eggs for Christmas Eve breakfast, salad, wine, and dessert for Christmas Eve dinner, sausage and mimosas for Christmas brunch, and we’ve settled on lamb for Christmas dinner.

Had a chat with the doctor this morning. It wasn’t great news, but it wasn’t the worst conversation you could have with a doctor either. She’s doing her best and just asking me to hang in there. She’s talking about adding more medications and the one’s she’s mentioned seem to have some very harsh side effects. I’m scared and, to be honest, angry. I’m not angry at the doctor and I know it’s wrong to be angry at myself, but I’m angry all the same. I just don’t know where to point the emotion or how to express or how to let it go.

I probably need time. I need to process. Thank God for my support groups. I’m never alone there. I can search for others going through what I am. I can distract myself from my problems by reading about problems different from my own. I can even uplift myself by offering advice to those in need. That is when I feel the best, when I am helping. My holiday isn’t what I hoped it would be, but I’ve still been able to find the spirit.