lunabee34

I dithered for a long time about whether I wanted to make this post. I wasn't sure I wanted to be as honest in a public post as a real reckoning of the past year and a true forecast of the next would require.

See, here's the thing, and I have to go back several years to really get to the thing. Longtime readers will remember that in May of 2012, Josh had a nasty emergency appendectomy after which he developed pulmonary embolisms. He almost died. It was scary. And I thought it would be a watershed moment, a foundational moment, an epiphany, a turning point.

In some ways it was. Because Josh almost died, we have Fiona. I have been able to let go of some old hurts and move on from them. I have been able to give myself permission not to waste time on maintaining toxic relationships.

In other ways, it was less transformational than I'd hoped. Take 2015. I expected this year to be one of the best we've had in a long time. I was promoted, I got tenure, Emma gained so much confidence from running track and is the most comfortable with herself I've ever seen, Fiona is brilliant and almost completely potty trained, Josh applied for tenure with a strong application--this was our year.

And yet, I spent most of 2015 deeply anxious and unhappy. Some of that was situational. I have had a hard time dealing with the symptoms of my autoimmune disorder. Fiona has had a variety of time-consuming and frightening illnesses. But I also think it's because I've let myself forget the lessons I learned when my life was balanced on a knife's edge, when I was so grateful that I was allowed to keep what I've been given.

I made some progress on life projects in 2015. I stopped visiting the social media sites of former friends. I stopped angsting about the relatives I dislike and stopped being anxious about having to spend time with them (most of that stems from finally stopping myself from having endless permutations of mental conversations about what they might say and how I might respond; those thought loops led me to have emotional reactions to things that hadn't even been said and only existed in my imagination; extremely unproductive use of time).

But I still have work to do. Here's what I intend to work on for 2016.

Resolutions

Self-Care
*Be grateful. Wallow in the positive rather than the negative. Focus on what I have rather than what I lack.
*The Hashimoto's has done a number on my skin and eyes. I bought eye drops and am using them (I hate the way my eyes feel for the first fifteen minutes after application, but for the rest of the day my eyes feel so much better; my vision had been so blurry from dryness). I bought good lotion and have been using it. My nostrils and eyelids have gotten dry and scaly, and my hands are a mess; this is helping.
*I've started taking vitamins.
*Go to bed earlier. Ideally I'd like to get to a 10:30 bedtime unless we have guests.

Exercise
Because I'm an academic, my life is broken up into thirds. I always do so well with exercise Jan-March, end of May-Aug, Aug-Oct. But I peter out at the end of every semester.
*12,000 steps daily
*exercise in the morning before work M-F
*exercise 3 days a week after school with Emma

Diet
*Eat less red meat (made good progress with this in 2015)
*Eat more grains, salad, fish (made good progress with this in 2015)

Mostly, I want the lessons that were so dearly won to remain fresh for me and not to fade away. I want to remember to live in the moment and enjoy what's good and turn my back on the petty and the selfish and the unproductive. I have a good life. I have a good career in which I am respected. I have a good relationship with a man who I might say was my soul mate if I believed in such things. I have two amazing children. I'm a good writer. I have close friends who deeply care about me. Come hell or high water, 2016 is going to be my year.

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monanotlisa

Thanks for sharing; this is extremely honest and thoughtful. You're a babe, and you deserve the best! *hugs*

havocthecat

Yay for 2016! I hope your lessons remain fresh and that everything is wonderful for you. I'm also glad you're avoiding the social media sites of former friends. It can be a very useful thing to avoid them. Or at least it has been for me.

Focusing on the positive is a wonderful thing! I would be happy to help in whatever way I can, even if you just need to chat with someone about fun stuff every now and again.

kore

I know what you mean about trying to hang on to the lessons about life when it feels like you're in danger of losing it. And I really like your last paragraph, too.

cloudsinvenice

I know what you mean about the thought loops; I'm very prone to that myself and it's taken me the last few years to pull myself out of habitual descent into them. But it makes such a difference when you identify the phenomenon, and the implication is that we can be as boosted by hypothetical positives as negatives. And from the sound of it, the positives are more than just hypothetical. :)