Welcome to 2021! Phew! For a while there, I didn't think we'd ever make it! I had the most exciting New Year's Eve — I lit some candles, turned on 'The Fireplace Channel,' slipped into something a little more comfortable (meaning an extended waistband), and read a book. I video chatted with my sister and our girlfriends for a while and caved to their peer pressure of at least staying up until midnight. When 2021 arrived, I was snuggled under my covers. I sent a few final texts and was asleep at 12:15. I know it was 12:15 because my fitness watch tracks my sleep.
All in all, it was a good night, considering. I did a lot of thinking, and most of it was about nothing special — which is always the best thinking in my opinion. I just let my mind wander wherever it wanted to go, and it must have gone a little wilder than I thought, because that night I dreamt that my sister bought a miniature cow to keep in her backyard so she'd always have fresh milk for her tea. If you're someone who analyses dreams, feel free to have a go at that one.
For whatever reason, I always seem to wake up on New Year's morning full of piss and vinegar. This year was no exception. I woke up with this underlying energy to get moving and get some shit done. Not to go out jogging or start training for a marathon — don't be silly — but I did feel the urge to get all my Christmas decorations put away and the house cleaned. Just feels like a bit of a cleansing of the past year.
But seriously, does anything really change when the clock moves those sixty seconds into a new year? Of course not. But I do think with the changing of the calendar, there is this renewed sense of hope and optimism that somehow this next year will be different from the last. And it can be if we truly want it to. Unfortunately, we can't control everything in our lives and world, but we can control the choices and decisions we make.
Napping is very underrated — I've learnt this as I've gotten older. Now, if I'm tired and I have the chance, I'm closing my eyes for however long I can. As a person who spends the majority of her day on the road and driving, I can't even tell you how many naps I've had in my car in some back-parking lot or side street. I've even coined the term 'side-street napping.' I think it sounds like I'm some hip urbanite instead of a middle-aged suburban woman who has a trunk full of empty reusable grocery bags and an extra pair of runners in the back seat.
After my nap, I decided to finish off the book I was reading. For those who've never heard of Erma Bombeck, she was an American humorist who spoke for the women of an entire generation, revealing that being a housewife and a mother came with its own sets of concerns and wasn't necessarily a glamorous occupation. She wrote with hilarity and wit. Reading as a woman in 2021, Bombeck's words still ring true and many of the issues she hilariously wrote about in the 1970s and 1980s are unfortunately still prevalent in our society.
Her book is essentially a commentary on the rise of self-help books and our constant need, especially as women, to improve ourselves or make ourselves more 'worthy.' So basically, listen to your heart. You know you best. Sure, it's okay to seek and take advice from others, but there is no 'Ten Steps to Happiness' or 'Three Must-Do Things to Ensure Love.' Life is not a list, and all of this information thrown at you — including what I write each week — should only be taken as a guide or research you're gathering so that you can make your own decisions based on what you need and want out of life.
The point is, people can offer their guidance and their own experiences, but nothing is going to apply perfectly to you or your life. It's up to you to take bits and pieces, find those little nuggets of wisdom, and build your own book with its own chapters and pages.
You know what? I don't care how it's supposed to be done. I'm glad what they've suggested works for them, but there is no way I'm going to define my life by the rules and guidelines someone else uses for theirs. That's their life, and this is mine.
As I said last week, this year I choose to move forward. I'm never going to stop reading and listening and learning, but I'm going to take all that outside information and set it on my bedside table until I talk to my head and listen to my heart and hear what they're saying. Then I'll decide what gets incorporated and what doesn't.
That's the beauty of you being you — you get to decide.