The people who know me well know I've never given two shakes about New Year's, or New Years Resolutions. Don't misunderstand; I will definitely take advantage of the social event and get friends together. I'd love to do this monthly, but life never has time for that, so I'll take the excuses birthdays and New Years gives us for this. Any excuse for a party. But resolutions . .. no. They've never been my thing.
And yet this year, things felt different. I think the reason is that my life now is one that has a very clear schedule, or routine. In the past if someone asked me how my winter was, or what I did over the summer, I'd struggle to have a decent answer. Life at home, home schooling with little kids, meant every day just bled into the next. I never knew if it was Monday or Friday, winter or fall, because it never mattered. We were only beholden to the schedule we gave ourselves. When I got up, what I did all day and who I saw, was forever dependent on the kids and their needs and schedules (or more often, lack thereof). This was the norm for me for over a decade. I would stop and take stock when I could, but little kids, well, there's little time to stop and think. You just try to keep up, and toss in a load of laundry or snatch a chapter in your own novel when you had a minute. And then I dipped my toe into working again, while still being a home learning parent. And I'll admit, while I was good at ideas for home schooling, I was shit at the follow-through. So these past years I channeled the guilt I felt at being 'busy at work' into doing a 'really good job' of home schooling. I'd vowed to really do it, make things happen, not just dream them up and then shelve them once again for the easier route, which was watching Road to Avonlea and calling it Social Studies, or going to the beach (again) and calling it a field trip. So the past 2 years, when I'm not at work for money, I'm trying to get the girls to a class, or teach the class, or reflect on the class, or plan the next one. And forget the laundry. My new reality is that I am busier than I'd like to be January-December, and so this year I'd planned to sit awhile over the winter break and think. To think about living this fast, this on-the-go, this permanent feeling of being behind, and how I could find ways not to keep letting it swallow me up. The past few years of working and home learning have been brutal.
Here's a pic of a dying plant I found abandoned in the teen's room, to illustrate my point:
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I need more light, and water, and someone to talk to me in soothing tones. Don't misunderstand: Life is good. I love my job and I love being a home schooler, and I love the people I share my home with and the glorious people I'm lucky enough to cal my friends. But I've definitely not found my groove with it all, or how to cope as an introvert with all these darned people around! And my mindset is always of 'survive this' not 'thrive in this'. I am forever stressed, and exhausted. I know we all feel this way. But I don't want to accept it anymore, do you? I cope with stress by never-stopping, by always thinking that I need to get to the next task and then I can relax. And then never comes. There is no down-time. Partly because I don't allow it. If I ignore that email tonight I might miss replying to it tomorrow so I'd best get to it now. Oh and while I'm online, I should look for more ideas on the chemistry class next week. Did I order enough supplies for it? Oh crap, there's a work email, did I do the task they're following up on? (Because I'm actually an 11 year old masquerading as an adult and mother, and I'm desperate not to be found out!). If I were to sit down on the sofa with a gin and my book, I'd be unable to give in to relaxing, because I think there's something I'm forgetting, some task, either work or life-related, that I've missed, and the effects will be drastic if I don't get to it RIGHT NOW. Or I'd think I was being lazy and self-indulgent, and that there was more I could be doing. It's just how I'm wired. Others can relax really well. I'm married to one of them. I feel like they're naturally born relaxers, and that's like a wicked super-power. I want that. Other people, like me, are naturally born go-go-go-ers. There are things that need doing and we're here to get 'er done. We want to be like the other people, the relaxers, but the hamster running on the wheel inside our heads make it really hard to just STOP. The ideas, the tasks, the goals, the many things we say 'yes' to, always about others. If only we could give some of our hamster-anxiety-yes energy to the relaxers, and they could give us some of their chill. Give me a chill pill. In fact I'll take four.
So this fall I kept telling myself I just had to make it to December, and then I could look at things and find a 'better way'. I just needed to survive this year. (I neglected to remember the break-neck speed at which life goes in December; it's hardly relaxing). The week between Christmas and New Years is my favorite, because I feel like it's the one week that I don't have to do anything, or be anywhere, or see anyone. And I can just do what I want. And I wanted to think.
I made lists, and collages, read about efficiency and habits, about balance and bullet journaling, listened to podcasts about work-life balance, and I tried to find a better way to structure my year.
Where could I fit in what I needed: exercise, art, rest, friends, writing? Time with my husband. Time to think and read. Time to dance and time to sleep. Time alone, the balm I crave from sun up to sun down. I needed to schedule these things just like I did work and schooling. Otherwise I'd never make time for them. But is there actually enough time in a day to cover it all?
All of this made me realise I needed to really work and live with intent. To focus on one task at a time, and commit to stopping one task when it was time for the other, equally important task. To treat exercise as importantly as I treated work projects; to treat my own down time as I treated the girls education and social connections. To see myself and my needs as just-as-important as I saw everything and everyone else in my life. It felt like a resolution. One hell of a resolution.
And it's really, really hard. My brain is just running, a mile a minute.
I find I need to regularly remember to focus. Start my day with my list, and really see each task as having value, especially if it's about me. And to leave enough time to get those things done, and only those things. Tune out the voice that says 'check your email, what if you've forgotten something?'. It's impossible for this hamster-wheel girl. I need to stop multi-tasking. I need to just follow my lists today. I need to drink water and breathe slowly. I need to remember Kevin. Be Kevin, girl. What would Kevin do? He would chill, baby, chill.
But I know everything takes practice. And time.
So bring it 2017. I accept the your challenge.
xoxo
C
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