Looking Back, Moving Forward: My 2018

It seems like forever ago when I last wrote about, well, anything.

Like days and even months, I feel that there are good years and bad years in our lives. Sometimes it's just a month or two that shadow the rest of the year, and sometimes it's more than a few months.

I wanted 2018 to be a good year. And there were times that it was. I got to plan and go on an incredible trip to New York City for a whole week. Discover some new foods that I hadn't tried before, and rediscover some old ones that I'd forgotten. Get a bit farther in my goal of attaining a bachelors degree. Yet when I sit here a moment, and truly try to think of all that I did for 2018, all I can feel is that I spent a lot of it working at my job.

Izzy is reminding me to use the things on my desk, not store them on the desk

I tried to attach a word for the year that I would attempt to follow, and be my guide for how I would live for that year. For 2018 I had chosen 'rejuvenate.' I felt that I had been doing too much, and not spending enough time taking care of myself. I had hoped to find time to write words that crept, swooped, and jumped into my mind like birds. There and gone for but a day, a minute, a moment. Take time to leave the house long enough to enjoy  the day,Live in the moment of the changing of the hours and sky. Be more mindful really.

And instead, my word became 'work.' For it seemed that no matter how well I tried to balance my life to be more than two modes of being, I found myself inevitably stuck between either 'work' or 'not work.' Some of it was my own fault. I did not object to the extended work hours, or the two month long stretch of working an extra day. The placation that this was only temporary soothed our frazzled nerves for a time. But here it is, January and the temporary is starting to feel more permanent instead.

The proper way to face the upcoming work week.

 So for 2019, I have decided my word should be 'Go' or 'Do'. That rather than forgo doing the things I want to do because it might interrupt my work schedule, or take longer than two days to get to and come back; I am going to instead aim to do the things I want first. Because otherwise, when will I do it?And that goes for this blog as well. I have an entire backlog of drafts that are only partially finished.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”

― Earl Nightingale