I look back on my goals from 2015 (that I was quite thorough and eloquent about, as I reread them!), and can hardly believe that was almost 2 years ago. If I'm honest with myself, and I want to be that even if it's painful, I can't even remember why I dropped that process so quickly. Less than 2 months, and I wasn't even posting here anymore. Trust me when I say that I thought about it the whole year. I didn't just forget or shrug and say, "Eh, whatever." I just let myself get distracted. That's so easy to do. Life just rushes in and takes away my will to accomplish anything for myself. I use the excuse that I don't have time to focus on my own things, then feel resentful and bitter about that, when the truth is I'm wasting valuable time on my phone and tablet!
2015 wasn't such a big year of changes within my life and my family's, until the end of the year. Oldest son got a new job that paid more, daughter's husband was in a preacher training program, here in our city. Younger son was sticking with a painting job and raising his son, with our help. At the very end of the year, son-in-law got into a good, but intensive, one-year preacher training in California (16 hour drive from here). So I had to say good-bye to my daughter after being together in this place for about 8 years.
2016 saw even bigger changes. I've been at the same job now for 4 years. Our household has been eight people since 2011, and this year 4 of them moved out into their own space, which is a wonderful step for them. I'm still getting used to that! In the middle of the year, I was diagnosed with a minor form of uterine cancer and had the first major surgery of my life (hopefully the last!), a complete hysterectomy. The upside to that was I did enjoy being at home for half the summer. Everything is good, and I'm back to work full time. I have a feeling there will be some more major changes in 2017. Change is exciting and scary and stressful all at once. I've not been very good with change in the past, but the last few years I have worked to be more accepting and peaceful with it.
So, things change and yet stay the same. I'm still the same person. I still struggle with the same things I always have (and I know this because I complained about the same feelings in journals years ago). It seems I'm never happy with myself. I find it such an exhausting chore just to exist on a daily basis at times. I want more than that...so much more. I want joy and peace. I want to greet each day with renewed enthusiasm and energy. I want to make the most of each and every day....because, as a good friend repeats to herself and anyone that will listen (!), "We only get today, it's the only one we're promised." And that is a basic profound truth that we all have a tendency to brush off and say, "yeah, yeah." YES! One day at a time. That's all I'm given, to cherish as precious and pursue with gusto, or to undervalue (that's putting it nicely) and waste being stressed and depressed and apathetic.
I will interject here that I REALLY don't want to feel stressed/depressed/apathetic, but I have spent quite a bit of time in that unhappy and unproductive state in my life. And I am fully aware that it's very hard to conquer those feelings, especially when major depression runs deeply in my family. So some of it may be chemical or hormonal, I'm not ruling that out. And I'm not totally against taking medication to help, and I am taking vitamins to see if there is a specific vitamin or mineral missing that I need. I'm trying to avoid foods that I know don't help my mood (corn, specifically). But I haven't consistently tried to change my thinking and habits to help myself, and that's what I want to do, starting now.
Another challenge I face is that I'm fairly certain I'm ADD. I've never been diagnosed, but looking back on my childhood there was a clear pattern of daydreaming and inattentiveness in school and at home (and being able to tune out everyone and everything when I'm concentrating hard on something). I have learned over my fifty-something years to cope with my attention problems, especially when there is an "event" looming or a deadline of some kind. I can get things done and stay on task when it's absolutely necessary, but in my everyday life it is a constant struggle. So it's one of the things to tackle when making goals and trying to develop good habits. I must constantly (by that I mean DAILY) remind myself of my goals and how I plan to accomplish them.
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