As I've mentioned many times, I don't care for resolutions. I do like goals though, and I make them pretty much every day of my life.
That sounds crazy, doesn't it? Well, it's true. One thing I need people to understand is that just because something sounds crazy that doesn't mean it isn't true. When you have severe anxiety and depression like I do you sometimes have to convince yourself to do things like "get out of bed" and "shower" and "not cry" and "want to continue living" and whatnot. I know. Glamorous.
(On a side note, someone said to me the other day and I swear to God this is true, "What do YOU have to be depressed about?" And this, my friends, is what is wrong with the state of mental health in this country. Because 1) I am depressed and continually anxious because MY BRAIN IS BROKE and 2) If you honestly don't understand that I would give absolutely anything to not feel this way every day of my life, then I just can't help you. I have no words. I've spent forty years feeling guilty for being a freak, choking down medications, and getting up every damn day even when I don't want to, and I have seriously no time for this. Call me a special snowflake, call me whatever you want. If you ever develop cancer I'll be sure to call you and ask you why you are laying in bed and tell you all about how if you'd just try harder you wouldn't have cancer, tell you how uncomfortable your cancer makes me, and do my very best to make you feel the way you make me feel about the thing that I can't control even with medication and weekly therapy. Deal?)
Anyway.
Every single day of my life I make a list. Lists help me. They keep me focused. I find a great deal of satisfaction in checking things off lists, usually with a multitude of different colors.
Daily is usually all I can handle, but since it's the first day of this godforsaken new year, I'll try with the 2017 goals.
I posted on Facebook that my primary goal is to be so busy improving myself that I have no time to notice the faults of others. So just ignore that paragraph up there about the jerkoff who asked me what I have to be depressed about. Actually, don't ignore that. It's fine. It happened before this year so it totally doesn't count.
Other goals:
-Continue working towards self-acceptance. Be kinder to myself. Recognize how far I've come and stop worrying about how far I have to go.
-Spend more time petting Ginger and telling her what a good girl she is. She's eleven. I won't have her forever.
-Vacation without phones.
-Say "no" more, without any guilt or regret. It's okay to not do stuff you hate. I know this, yet keep doing stuff I hate. I am happy to say I do less stuff that I hate, but I'd like to get myself to a "zero-doing-things-you-hate" life.
-Pray more. To be fair, I pray a lot but it just sounds like having a conversation with Jesus ("Hi Jesus, it's me Stephanie!"). I think that's fine and I think that, pretty clearly, Jesus hears my prayers. I also think Jesus enjoys my prayers because sometimes they are pretty funny and involve things like not wanting to punch people who are terrible. He knows I'm trying.
-Be bitchier to my children.
Okay, this probably sounds hilarious, but I seriously think I've made their lives way to easy. My first instinct is always to help/fix/rescue/do for and...what good is that doing them? I mean, I'm obviously not going to leave them stranded or whatever, but if my son texts and asks if I can give him a ride home from work or if he should just walk I'm going to say, "You can walk". It's less than 2 miles. And if he's cold, well then next time he'll remember his jacket.
They are almost 19. They are nice and smart and friendly and really good, decent people..who need to start fending for themselves a little more.
That's all I have. That's probably enough.
I just want to be better. I've given up on wanting the world around me to be better, but I can at least work on me.
1 comment:
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