Happy New Year!

[mousme]

 Happy New Near. everyone!

I am... cautiously optimistic about 2019. 2018 was a bit of a roller coaster ride, with some good ups and some pretty bad downs. I learned about myself, faced a lot of setbacks, learned some more about myself, and also did some pretty good things. Work got worse, life got more hectic than I ever wanted, but I started taking those first steps on the journey of 1,000 miles.

So, I figured I would set out some intentions for 2019. Not exactly resolutions, because I associate those with Acts of Willpower™, and I am not good at those. I get overwhelmed easily, and my willpower tends to run out halfway through the day, or pretty much right away during my night shifts. ;)

But yeah. Intentions. I am turning 40 in five days (whoop whoop!), and aside from having a big old party to celebrate (first actual birthday party since I was 13 years old! Also likely the last one.), I am... not exactly satisfied with where I find myself. I honestly thought I'd be in a different position at this age than I currently am, and while it's not like I haven't been working toward what I want, I also haven't been as laser-focused as I'd like.

This is likely going to get long, and probably boring to most people who aren't me. I don't know, maybe some people will find it interesting, which is why I'm posting it at all.

I like bullet lists. They make me feel productive and organized (even if it's an illusion), so let's use a bullet list.

• I'm going to try to be better to myself. My therapist has been nudging me to be more forgiving with myself, which is not my strong suit, let me tell you. I am reasonably forgiving of others, 100% forgiving of children and animals, less so with adults (it takes a while to get me truly angry, but once I'm there, I will hold a grudge for eternity). I figure this will break down into two main categories.
  • I will try to be mindful of myself, and be a bit more gentle on the mental/psychological side. This means working on my mindfulness practice, and less negative self-talk and self-flagellation when I make mistakes. I will try to set more reasonable expectations for myself, and not berate myself for failing to accomplish the extraordinary.
  • I am going to be kinder to my body. As much as I hate to admit it, I do tend to treat my body like a container in which my brain just happens to be sloshing around. I was doing pretty well with things in 2016 but, well, that was two and a half years ago. In the past two years I've stopped exercising and not been eating well, and not going out into the sun very much, and... yeah. So, I'm going to continue trying for reasonable bedtimes (I did pretty well with that in 2018, I must say), and try to eat more nutritious foods and at regular intervals, rather than realizing that I haven't eaten for most of the day (oops) and that I am so hungry I don't want to wait through cooking something. I'm trying not to fall into the trap of "good" and "bad" or "clean" and "dirty" food, as food should not have a moral value, but "nutritious" seems like a good way to think about it. I am also going to go outside and just move around: sunshine and some sort of physical activity, probably a lot of walking at first.
• I'm going to continue my efforts to fix my finances. They're not in terrible shape, but I'm still feeling some of the effects from my failed relationship, and having to move in 2017 coupled with some very, very expensive vet bills have set me back quite a ways. There were other expenses too, some of them necessary, some of them just nice things that I wanted even though I didn't necessarily need them (equipment to make my streaming on Twitch look better or run more smoothly, for instance). There were also two new computers, one that I'd been saving up for (for streaming and gaming), and one "cheap" laptop that I got on sale after my laptop died. Oh, and of course there's tuition to be paid for university now (egads). In short, this year I want to focus on saving more money, and living more economically. This means:
  • Putting more money aside each month.
  • Budgeting a lot more carefully, and actually paying attention to the budget and to the details of my spending (I am erratic about that sort of thing at the best of times).
  • Taking fewer shortcuts with eating. This kind of dovetails with the "eating better" thing. I wake up stupidly early for work, and I'm often rushed, and instead of preparing breakfast or taking one I've made in advance, I tend to sprint out the door and then have to stop at Tim Horton's, or the cafeteria at work. This is expensive. Eight to ten dollars a time adds up very fast. I am lucky to have the kind of disposable income that lets me do this, but it's not a great way to live, it's not especially sustainable, the food isn't particularly good, and overall it's bad for me in many ways. So I need to make time in the week to prepare food for work, both breakfasts and lunch.
  • Making fewer impulse purchases. This isn't a huge problem for me, but nonetheless, it's not a good habit. If I want something that's not immediately necessary, I can put it on a list and wait for it to go on sale, or put a little money aside for it and see if I still want it in a few weeks or a month or whatever.
  • Make a push to pay off my existing debt. It's not huge, but it's not negligible, either. Certainly it's more than I can pay off in a year given my current income and expenses. I think that if I'm careful I can probably get it down to half. Maybe. I need to work that into my budget somehow.
• Being more mindful of the environment. I have fallen into some very bad habits, especially when it comes to single-use plastics. I know that individual action is not what's going to make the most impact on caring for the environment or halting climate change, but it doesn't mean that I can't try to reduce my carbon footprint anyway.
• Living a less selfish life. Honestly, I've been living in a very self-centered bubble the past couple of years. I remember when I used to be a person who gave back to her community, and I want to go back to that. I am going to try to find volunteering opportunities that will jive with my work and school schedule.
• Work more actively on minimizing the impact my ADHD has on my life. Now that I know that a lot of my "Why the fuck can't I get my shit together" questions can be answered with "You have ADHD, dumbass!" it gives me a starting point. I just have to continue to experiment and figure out what works and what doesn't. So far it's been mostly like the quote attributed to Edison: I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that won't work. 
  • I need to work on my terrible habit of procrastination. It mostly stems from anxiety and overwhelm (most often over trivial stuff), or disinterest and outright dislike of certain things that are, alas, necessities.
  • I need to find an organization system that works for me. This may end up being multiple piles of paper that I can sort through, even if it doesn't look pretty. I no longer care what it looks like, as long as it works. Up until now I was convinced that an organization system had to look the way all neurotypical people's systems looked: super neat and tidy, with everything tucked away out of sight and sorted alphabetically or numerically or something. I have since learned that no, there is no rule about that. I just need something that works specifically for me.

That's it for the intentions. I have more specific plans for all of them, using the SMART acronym (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely), but that's honestly way more than needs to go in this entry.

I have a couple of other plans for this year that don't fall into that category. Now that I'm a bit more settled (2017 was a year of moving and trying to figure out how I wanted to live in the current house), I am back on the "having children" bandwagon. Adoption from foster care is currently a wash, so it's back to having a child the more-or-less old-fashioned way (minus actually having to sleep with a man). There has been a battery of tests, and it turns out I need to have a minor medical procedure sometime in the next couple of months to work out if, for instance, the growth in my uterus is actually cancer. No one seems especially worried, so I am not really worried about it either, but "cancer" is not a fun word no matter the context.

The other thing is that I am going to get another dog. No dog will ever replace Sergent, but then, Sergent never replaced Joseph, either. No pet is a replacement for another, that's not how it works for me. I just enjoy the companionship way too much, and I miss having a dog. Don't get me wrong, the cats are just as wonderful in their own way, and I am still a crazy cat lady, but I love having both. I have also decided that I am going to make an exception to my "rescues only" policy on pets and get a puppy. This is because I want to see how well I do raising a dog from the moment they are teeny-tiny, as a couple of years ago I took a course to become a dog trainer. I want to see how I do with a dog that doesn't come with pre-existing psychological issues, if that makes sense. It will give me a better idea of my own skills, and when I move a bit further away from Ottawa (I can't afford to buy a house in the city) I will be able to get more dogs, and those will be rescues. I have decided on the Brittany spaniel as a breed, because I've wanted one since I was about eight years old, and they are small enough that when the dog gets elderly I won't have trouble wrestling it into the car the way I had to with Sergent (whom I loved, but when he became too ill to get in and out of the car on his own, was far too much dog for me to handle on my own). So I have lined up a reputable breeder, and with any luck I shall have a puppy sometime in May!

I'm also going to be looking into taking a summer class or two at university, if I can. I have no idea if the courses I need will even be offered, but if they are I will be jumping at the chance. I would ideally like to finish this degree earlier than the currently projected five years, so that I can move onto a Masters.

And that's it for my plans for 2019, at least for now. Let this be the year that we all kick ass and take names!

Comments

[owldaughter]

PUPPY!

This all sounds like a very reasonable way to approach 2019 and the general goal of better self-care. I like it.

I miss you!

[mousme]

Same! But we shall see each other on Saturday. We should plan another movie date with toughlovemuse, too. What is even coming out this year? Captain Marvel? I am very out of touch. :P

[colesdragon.livejournal.com]

OMG you share a birthday with my wife! Very cool.

I think this is a great list of intentions for the year. 2018 was my year to work on mindfulness and I made a great go of it. I definitely plan to continue this in 2019.

I may have missed something so I hope you don't mind me asking why adoption from foster care is a wash?