Time is a strange thing. I can hardly believe that 2018 is already a week old. Only a week.
New Year’s Day used to be my favourite day of the year. I would wake up early and pretend I was the only one awake in the world. I’d go for long walks and listen to audiobooks, then come home and set up my paper calendar for the year (the one I’d forget about around 10th January), and make more resolutions than a human being can possibly keep.
These days January is a month for me to battle through. Like many others I struggle with the lack of daylight and my freezing cold bedroom in the morning. But mostly this month has become riddled with anniversaries of unpleasant experiences: there are days I absolutely dread (like my birthday), and other days on which I just wake up with a mild shudder. But overall there is little to look forward to.
This New Year’s Day I walked over 10 kilometres through the woods and my neighbourhood, listening to Brené Brown’s lecture series, The Power of Vulnerability. When I came back home in the late afternoon, my relationship had ended. I called my mum and cried to her for an hour. Then we agreed that at least, from here my year could only get better.
And so far it’s been alright. I've gone to work, kept up my meditation and my running; I caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages; read books that made me feel good; and did a few scary things, like launching this blog. My teeth hurt because I’ve been grinding them, and my left shoulder is a tight ball of pain, but other than that, I’m okay. I think it'll be an alright year.
The world is still scary. I still mentally prepare myself each morning before I look at the news. Sometimes it feels strange or inappropriate, in the face of all that uncertainty, to focus so much on ourselves. But we can only make it through, and make it better, if we take care of ourselves and others. We'll keep going.
