goals

There was a lot of hope for 2021–vaccines, life going back to normal, I was training for a marathon, and my family was just grateful that my husband survived his sickness and came out of a coma in February of 2020.

Some of what we hoped for happened–we got the vaccines, life got better. Then the variants came and so many more people have died and so many people refuse vaccines and life will always be different. I was able to fly to a conference in Nevada and to see a dear friend in Kentucky in the fall, but now many flights are canceled around the globe due to COVID and quarantine times. I had a stress fracture and stopped training for a marathon but was able to run again later in the year. My husband had a widow maker of a heart attack on June 15th and has had several surgeries since. Things got better, then worse. Two steps forward and life looked good, then another setback. Like Anne Lamott says in her book Dusk Night Dawn, “It’s like tucking an octopus into bed at night: new arms keep popping out.”

Now a new year is coming. 2022 is nearly here. I honestly haven’t talked to anyone who is hopeful about it. Everyone is exhausted and burnt out and just tries to get through each day without losing their shit.

We have to find something to look forward to. SOMETHING. As I’ve said many times before, I usually love the new year. I like clean slates, fresh starts, new beginnings, and every other cliche you can think of. Sometimes I think of a new year as a New You (or rather new me). I often have resolutions, but they’re really more like goals. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t reach them, but I try. I’ll survive if they don’t come to fruition.

I’m going to try again to train for a marathon, although I can’t say I’m super positive about it. My body has hurt a lot lately and I’m mostly running to maintain some kind of fitness level until I can figure out what’s what. If I can’t train right away, I’ll work on that 15 pounds I want/need to lose (depending on the moment). And keep going to therapy to deal with that incessant want/need to lose the 15 pounds.

These are things, though, that are just part of my current life–running, losing weight, trying to be healthy. My real goal for 2022? I really, really want to do something new each month. I’ve wanted to LEARN something new each month before, but that doesn’t always happen. That can still be included, but I want to DO something I’ve never done every month. Just once a month. Sometimes it may just be making a new dessert because I just don’t have the money or resources to do what I’d like. But other times?

Here’s a short list of activities I’d like to do in 2022 that seem feasible:

Try out a sensory deprivation tank at Float 207.
Watch all the films that are nominated for Best Picture with my son and watch the Oscars on March 27th with him. Make pizza or nachos with him, too. I suppose I want to try and recreate what my brother and I used to do (although I think I only watched every film for the Oscars once).
Zip line
Get a monthly massage (I suppose this isn’t really trying something new yet making time to take care of myself seems new. I’ve had so few massages in my life but when I do, I always think “why don’t I do this more?!?”)
Find something to be grateful for each day. This is a tough one for me. It shouldn’t be but sometimes I am so Eeyore-like that I can’t get out of my own way, you know?
Get my passport!
Visit new places, especially state parks
Run somewhere new. I’d like to run in a new place each month, even just a new trail or a different road. Maybe that can be my running goal for the year if the marathon doesn’t work out.
Ride on a snowmobile

I have other pursuits, but many I might not be able to do. I’d like to work on my writing, come up with a few goals. Maybe write a few poems again. I’m not sure about that yet, but I do know that writing often brings me joy…or sometimes relief, like a deep breath that I didn’t know I needed. I’d also like to organize and digitize my photos. I have so many pictures of my own and from my parents and it seems pretty overwhelming, although I think it’s the emotional piece that is what seems insurmountable. Sometimes I can face grief head on, and other times I just avoid situations that make me remember. Like so many other things in life, it just depends on the day.

My family and I have joked and said “2022 is our year!” Then we immediately roll our eyes and knock on wood and tell each other to not say that anymore since we said that about 2019, 2020 AND 2021 and look how those friggin’ years turned out! Perhaps our resolution or goal for 2022 should just be to survive. It’s something that many were not able to do in 2021.

Maybe surviving and thriving? I don’t know, friends. I just don’t know anymore.

Nonetheless, I will keep shooting for my “new activity” each month and if that starts to feel like too much, I’ll just shoot for reading a new book each month. That one, as long as I’m living, I know I can achieve.

Good luck to all of you. Be safe. I’d love to hear your goals and resolutions and wishes for the future.

Happy New Year and may you feel loved and appreciated in 2022.

Typically I love the beginning of a new year. It’s so full of possibilities. This is the year I’ll finally [fill in the blank]! So many people scoff at the “lose weight” or “exercise more” resolutions that are made, but you know if that’s what you want to do in the upcoming year, then screw the naysayers. Some people just want to see you fail, no matter what your goal is. So don’t worry about everyone else, just do the best you can for yourself.

In the past, I’ve made some of those same resolutions and I eventually succeeded. I lost over 50 pounds one year and have kept it off. I ran over 600 miles in 2012 and completed a half-marathon in 2013. But I’ve also said I’d try something new each month, which I’m pretty sure never happened, or to be happier with myself, which will just be an ongoing battle.

This may be the first year I don’t have any kind of resolution or goal for myself. There are things I would *like* to do or become–I want to be physically stronger, I want to write more, I want to run a smidge more than I did last year, I want to bake gluten-free bread in my oven successfully–but if these things don’t happen then they don’t happen. No harm, no foul. Honestly, right now there are other people’s lives that will impact my own in such a manner that I don’t really want to have any goals. Not any personal ones, anyway.

Instead I have hopes and wishes for others.

I want my mother’s memory and health to stabilize for an entire year. I want my brother’s heart and health to maintain a good state. I want both my son and husband to enjoy moving their bodies. I want my best friend to find true love.

I want all of us, all of you, to be happy.

But the only thing I really intend on being this year is sane. If I can balance my day to day life–the work and parenting and keeping in shape and caring for Mom and making dinner and doing laundry and taking care of the house and being a wife and a friend–and still find a little time for me to read and write? Then sane I will be. Or rather become. I’m pretty sure I’m not there yet.

So happy new year, my friends. May all your resolutions or goals or intentions come to fruition, and may all of our wishes and hopes and dreams come true.