Not gonna lie, this post has been kind of difficult for me. Usually, at the end of the year, I love recalling, and looking back. After Christmas, I always get excited to make posts, and plan for the year ahead, but this year, I have been recovering from an 11-month burnout. Yeah, it’s as bad as it sounds, which sucks, because we’ve had so much good in this year, too, but: radical acceptance, am I right?
My words for 2023 was focus. At the end of 2022, I felt like our schedule was getting too full and we needed to focus in on the things that was wanted to prioritize. I did kind of did that—I sort of unconsciously went with focusing on community. Which is important. I have spent so much time trying to build up a strong community for ourselves and our kids, and every class and hangout was worth it, and we enjoyed them. However, when put all together, it left me completely depleted. And that’s a sucky thing to look back on. We had somewhere to be and someone to meet every single day. At least 2 things like that on the docket (a class or a friend) e v e r y d a y of the week—on a less-busy day. Even making my Favourite Things 2023 post was so hard, because the patterns I mostly saw from the year were all negative and about how things were “too much”.
I’ve spent the last week or two trying to figure out how we can make meaningful changes, while also dealing with my crisis-level need to just s t o p so I can recover some.
In 2024, the intention word we’re going with is
b a l a n c e
There were so many other, similar words I was considering, but this is the only one that didn’t leave room for me to say, “But we could add ____ to what we’re doing, and it would still be in line with our intention for the year.”
We have the rest of the academic year ahead of us, and as I look ahead to the next, where I’ll start a little bit of school with Harry, too, I don’t really see us having less activities in our lives. At least for now. So that means I’m going to have to look elsewhere to strike a balance. In the past, before we had so much established, it was a big deal for me to seize cool opportunities. Now, cool opportunities come up a lot. But I can’t—much to my utter dismay—always hit all of them. For example, I had an event I had been looking forward to for weeks, maybe even a month, but on the day of, getting Todd home in time to watch the kids was going to be tricky, and the way the day shook out had me doing things from 9-when I’d need to go. Getting the kids passed off, and then adding a few more hours onto that day just wasn’t going to work, so I had to let it slide, despite that being really disappointing. I want to prioritize friendships, because relationships are a huge part of what makes life meaningful. But, I’m not going to be able to be full-throttle, weekly, saying, “I have two 2-hour time slots—and that’s LITERALLY IT for free time this week—so I can pencil you in.” That’s crazy. That’s what I did all through 2023.
On the flip side, because a big part of my week is teaching + chauffeuring right now, I need my free time help give me that balance. Adding more to my days sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out. I’ve been just browsing my phone lately, especially the last 2 months of 2023, as we’ve been sick several times. That’s not relaxing. That doesn’t add anything to my cup. That makes the teaching and driving just about teaching and driving and feeling blah. I have a list of things I’m interested in doing more of (exercising regularly after all this illness, and reading being the top two). But these things are for fun, and to add a sparkle, and accomplishment to my day—not for me to try and become excellent at. These things will—hopefully—bring me the balance I need to get my perpetually boiled over pot back down to a simmer, and full of good things that don’t leave my schedule packed to the brim.
Here’s to a 2024 that isn’t just extended burnout. I’m off the continue my very intentional nothing-doing.
