In a perhaps misguided (time will tell) attempt to start the new year off on the right foot I have spent the day cleaning the bedroom and organizing my closet.
It was a marathon of laundry and reorganizing and purging required to get things to some semblance of order. Not looking, in vain, for clean work clothes, especially socks, will be worth it on Tuesday morning. But how long will it last?
I have long given up resolutions, I don't believe they work since most people abandon them by March. But the new year, full of promise and newness, always does seem like a good time to set new goals and make plans.
So then, what can I do to keep myself moving ahead in 2012 and not stuck in the cursed funk that was 2011?
It was, easily, the worst year of my life. It started with such promise. Not long into the new year was news of my first pregnancy only to be lost by the end February. Doctors not realizing it was incomplete meant it was a month later before it finished. Adding in the usual insensitivities people show to those who have miscarried and news of a close friend becoming pregnant and I felt quite isolated and alone. I was left with a postpartum depression for which I finally had to seek help and be medicated.
Work had it's own stresses and dramas.
More than once this year I wanted to scream STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF!
So I face 2012 -- all full of that shiny promise and squeaky clean newness and wonder what goals to set.
The one my husband and I want is not up to us, but a finicky body of mine and a fate we have no control over. As much as we can hope and try we have no control.
And for a control freak, perfectionist like me that is a hard pill to swallow.
Perhaps the organized closet is a start. Keeping it organized and staying on top of the laundry are both easily obtainable goals and will give me an feeling of control over some small area of my life. Doing both will alleviate a certain level of stress that comes with clutter and disorganization.
This blog is another, an outlet for the thoughts that swim in my brain. I write for a living but it's not fun or creative and sometimes it can be hard to come home and write again, but I need to feed the creative part within that wants to write more beautifully and comically and be more heartfelt. I need to dedicate myself to updating it once a week, at a minimum.
Of course, I have the usual goals of eating better and exercising but am not tying to a change of year as I am wanting long term lifestyle changes, not a frenzied New Year's bikini plan. However, I will develop an action plan to kick start my hormone-ravaged, depression-laden body back into eating well and exercising as I had been doing before the miscarriage took over my life.
Standing on the precipice of 2012 I am glad to see the last year end and only too happy to welcome in a new one. Here's to starting it off right with three things I can focus on doing well and see a benefit from in 2012.
And here's to your 2012, may you have goals to reach and things to learn over the next year. Feel free to share what yours are in the comments section.
