So long, 2019!
Dec. 17th, 2019 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34And now it's that time where I review my goals for this year and make some new ones for the upcoming year.
My goals for this year were
1. Read at least 100 books.
2. Do a better job of putting down screens and participating in the moment with my family.
3. Find a two piece suit and at least one pair of closed toe shoes.
4. Taking Fluttershy as a model, be more patient and kind and less irritated. Approach everyone I meet as if they are a misunderstood dragon who has a very good medical reason for being an asshole.
5. Pay off the rest of Josh's credit card by my birthday.
6. Exercise more intensely. Right before traveling for the holidays derailed my momentum, I'd started back running 5 miles on the elliptical a day. I want to continue doing that.
7. Eat more thoughtfully. Over the last six months as I have gotten more and more depressed, I have definitely been eating my feelings and snacking like there's no tomorrow. I want to go back to the more sensible way I was eating before.
8. I'd like to make some kind of fannish goal, especially since DW is seeing such a resurgence of activity, so I also resolve to write five fics this year that are at least 1000 words long that are not for Yuletide.
So, how'd I do?
1. I blew through my goal of reading 100 books this year. Right now I'm at 205. Some of those are very short children's books (some of which I read multiple times throughout the year), but I feel really good about this result. Reading is essential to my mental health, and making sure I have time to read is really important.
8. I met my fic writing goal! I wrote three Guardian fics: Dire Straits, Doppelganger, and In Dreams. I wrote one Gotham fic: A Different Kind of Family; and one MCU fic: The Night Gone Black (part 2 of a series).
5. We didn't manage to pay off Josh's credit card this year, but we paid it down significantly, and we'll be able to pay it in full with my overload pay at the end of the month. So it's happening six months later than I'd hoped, but I still count it in the win column. Replacing the oven unexpectedly derailed the timeline of this goal.
2. I had partial success with limiting my screen time. I have made a concerted effort to stop spending so much time on screens, but I have not done as well with this one as I'd like.
The rest of them: pretty much zero progress. I am still a selfish asshole with a short fuse and unmanaged anxiety. I don't think I even tried to find a suit this year, and I have failboated my diet and exercise goals the whole year.
Goals for 2020
Writing 2020 feels so weird. The 2020s were always the decade in sci-fi movies when we'd get future tech or the apocalypse would happen or aliens would visit earth. Here we are, and looks like all we're getting is the apocalypse. LOL
1. Read at least 100 books.
2. Write at least 5 fics that are at least 1000 words long that aren't for Yuletide.
3. I don't teach or have office hours on Thursdays the spring 2020 semester. I am making Thursdays academic reading and writing days. I want to find a similar time in fall 2020 to devote to scholarly work. I am going to chair the Executive Committee for the 2020-2021 academic year (which comes with a course release each semester), so I should be able to find a comparable day in the fall semester. As much as this book chapter has intimidated me and caused me a lot of anxiety, I have also really enjoyed re-reading Ouida's works and criticism about her and discovering new things about her via new-to-me criticism. I love being a scholar; it's not something I have foregrounded in my academic career until relatively recently, but I am coming to replace my feelings of intimidation and impostor syndrome with confidence and satisfaction.
4. Spend this summer working on my novel. I'm not going to break this down any further yet; I need to be a little closer to time to make a viable plan. But my intention is to write in a concerted and scheduled way so that I have a first draft finished by August.
5. Exercise more intensely. I have had a pretty crappy year healthwise. In the fall semester of 2018, I started feeling kinda tired and unmotivated, but I really thought it was just the general malaise of the political situation and etc. Then in January, I had what I can only describe as some kind of attack--deep exhaustion, dry eyes to the point of vision impairment, deep thirst (so much so that my voice would be hoarse and my throat hurt and my tongue be uncomfortable in my mouth). My endo found a significant vitamin D deficiency, but treating it didn't abate the symptoms. This summer, my gyno discovered that I basically make no testosterone, but treating that doesn't seem to have made much difference (although to be fair, I have not been compliant with taking it on a daily basis; I haven't taken it in weeks at this point because I got discouraged). I continued to press for more tests with my endo and to insist that something is wrong when those tests came back normal, but we finally reached that point where I could tell that she was just aggravated with me and done with it all, and I didn't have any more wherewithal to keep advocating for myself because I'd expended all that energy advocating for Emma. (I have never been as angry as I was when her pediatrician told me that teenage girls are just anxious and nothing was wrong with her. Trufax, enough of a ferritin deficiency and you start to get symptoms that pretty frighteningly mimic MS and RA. After a week of RX-strength iron, all the symptoms disappeared. She's fine now.) I have my yearly appointment in Jan or Feb, and I intend to press for some additional testing and thinking about what might be wrong with me, but I also don't have any hope that I'm going to feel better. Y'all, I am just so tired. And that sounds so simple and like it's not a big deal. I'm not hurting. I can work. I can do stuff. But it has become such a big deal. I wake up in the morning, and I'm so tired. I work all day, and I'm so tired. I clean the house and play with my kids and cook dinner, and I'm so tired. I go to bed tired. I ever feel rested or refreshed. I never feel like I have energy. And it is depressing and draining. It makes me angry and sad. I see no hope that it's going to change. I have spent all year trying to come to terms with this new-normal, and I'm not there yet. But the bottom line is that I liked myself better when I was running five miles a day. I had more mental clarity. I had pride in my physical accomplishments. I was stronger. I miss that me. I want to find a way not to let my exhaustion stand in the way of doing something I find rewarding and meaningful. It doesn't have to be running five miles every day, but I need to find something to do that's better than this coasting I'm doing currently.
My goals for this year were
1. Read at least 100 books.
2. Do a better job of putting down screens and participating in the moment with my family.
3. Find a two piece suit and at least one pair of closed toe shoes.
4. Taking Fluttershy as a model, be more patient and kind and less irritated. Approach everyone I meet as if they are a misunderstood dragon who has a very good medical reason for being an asshole.
5. Pay off the rest of Josh's credit card by my birthday.
6. Exercise more intensely. Right before traveling for the holidays derailed my momentum, I'd started back running 5 miles on the elliptical a day. I want to continue doing that.
7. Eat more thoughtfully. Over the last six months as I have gotten more and more depressed, I have definitely been eating my feelings and snacking like there's no tomorrow. I want to go back to the more sensible way I was eating before.
8. I'd like to make some kind of fannish goal, especially since DW is seeing such a resurgence of activity, so I also resolve to write five fics this year that are at least 1000 words long that are not for Yuletide.
So, how'd I do?
1. I blew through my goal of reading 100 books this year. Right now I'm at 205. Some of those are very short children's books (some of which I read multiple times throughout the year), but I feel really good about this result. Reading is essential to my mental health, and making sure I have time to read is really important.
8. I met my fic writing goal! I wrote three Guardian fics: Dire Straits, Doppelganger, and In Dreams. I wrote one Gotham fic: A Different Kind of Family; and one MCU fic: The Night Gone Black (part 2 of a series).
5. We didn't manage to pay off Josh's credit card this year, but we paid it down significantly, and we'll be able to pay it in full with my overload pay at the end of the month. So it's happening six months later than I'd hoped, but I still count it in the win column. Replacing the oven unexpectedly derailed the timeline of this goal.
2. I had partial success with limiting my screen time. I have made a concerted effort to stop spending so much time on screens, but I have not done as well with this one as I'd like.
The rest of them: pretty much zero progress. I am still a selfish asshole with a short fuse and unmanaged anxiety. I don't think I even tried to find a suit this year, and I have failboated my diet and exercise goals the whole year.
Goals for 2020
Writing 2020 feels so weird. The 2020s were always the decade in sci-fi movies when we'd get future tech or the apocalypse would happen or aliens would visit earth. Here we are, and looks like all we're getting is the apocalypse. LOL
1. Read at least 100 books.
2. Write at least 5 fics that are at least 1000 words long that aren't for Yuletide.
3. I don't teach or have office hours on Thursdays the spring 2020 semester. I am making Thursdays academic reading and writing days. I want to find a similar time in fall 2020 to devote to scholarly work. I am going to chair the Executive Committee for the 2020-2021 academic year (which comes with a course release each semester), so I should be able to find a comparable day in the fall semester. As much as this book chapter has intimidated me and caused me a lot of anxiety, I have also really enjoyed re-reading Ouida's works and criticism about her and discovering new things about her via new-to-me criticism. I love being a scholar; it's not something I have foregrounded in my academic career until relatively recently, but I am coming to replace my feelings of intimidation and impostor syndrome with confidence and satisfaction.
4. Spend this summer working on my novel. I'm not going to break this down any further yet; I need to be a little closer to time to make a viable plan. But my intention is to write in a concerted and scheduled way so that I have a first draft finished by August.
5. Exercise more intensely. I have had a pretty crappy year healthwise. In the fall semester of 2018, I started feeling kinda tired and unmotivated, but I really thought it was just the general malaise of the political situation and etc. Then in January, I had what I can only describe as some kind of attack--deep exhaustion, dry eyes to the point of vision impairment, deep thirst (so much so that my voice would be hoarse and my throat hurt and my tongue be uncomfortable in my mouth). My endo found a significant vitamin D deficiency, but treating it didn't abate the symptoms. This summer, my gyno discovered that I basically make no testosterone, but treating that doesn't seem to have made much difference (although to be fair, I have not been compliant with taking it on a daily basis; I haven't taken it in weeks at this point because I got discouraged). I continued to press for more tests with my endo and to insist that something is wrong when those tests came back normal, but we finally reached that point where I could tell that she was just aggravated with me and done with it all, and I didn't have any more wherewithal to keep advocating for myself because I'd expended all that energy advocating for Emma. (I have never been as angry as I was when her pediatrician told me that teenage girls are just anxious and nothing was wrong with her. Trufax, enough of a ferritin deficiency and you start to get symptoms that pretty frighteningly mimic MS and RA. After a week of RX-strength iron, all the symptoms disappeared. She's fine now.) I have my yearly appointment in Jan or Feb, and I intend to press for some additional testing and thinking about what might be wrong with me, but I also don't have any hope that I'm going to feel better. Y'all, I am just so tired. And that sounds so simple and like it's not a big deal. I'm not hurting. I can work. I can do stuff. But it has become such a big deal. I wake up in the morning, and I'm so tired. I work all day, and I'm so tired. I clean the house and play with my kids and cook dinner, and I'm so tired. I go to bed tired. I ever feel rested or refreshed. I never feel like I have energy. And it is depressing and draining. It makes me angry and sad. I see no hope that it's going to change. I have spent all year trying to come to terms with this new-normal, and I'm not there yet. But the bottom line is that I liked myself better when I was running five miles a day. I had more mental clarity. I had pride in my physical accomplishments. I was stronger. I miss that me. I want to find a way not to let my exhaustion stand in the way of doing something I find rewarding and meaningful. It doesn't have to be running five miles every day, but I need to find something to do that's better than this coasting I'm doing currently.
