New Year’s Resolutions
How are you doing on your new year’s resolutions?
Going into year 4 of losing Danny and feeling like I haven’t accomplished much personally in the last 4 years, I decided, at least at the end of December, that 2018 was going to be different. Danny would want that, he was very goal oriented. When he set his mind to something, he aimed and went for it.
I was not going to tackle the entire year. Thinking of 12 months and another year without my son was just to daunting and overwhelming. I have always been of the philosophy that we should be gentle with ourselves. Life is hard enough as it is, why do we need to be our own worst enemies? I have a dear friend of over 30 years now, and you know who you are, who has always been hard on herself when she looks in the mirror. I have fought this tooth and nail and I believe as we have gotten older, I believe she has started to come around. It is much easier now as our bodies don’t look as they used to and they are much harder to keep up. All I can say is finally! My point of all of this is that since I am trying to be gentle on myself, I wrote resolutions for the first three months. I thought “I can do this”. It is only 3 months. I should be able to tackle some things in 3 months. I found a little journal notebook so I could check them off as I accomplished them. I was actually excited. After all, some of these things are for my betterment as I am getting older and they really just need to happen for healthier golden years. Of course, my list has some of the normal stuff for most people: lose some weight (I’d be happy with 5 pounds), eat healthier, exercise at least 3 times a week, get more organized, get up earlier, get home earlier, and my project, finish my life coach certification (that I got an extension for until 3/31) and do one PinoStrong activity. As I write this list, I’m thinking, what was I thinking? This is a lot of stuff.
Here we are in the middle of February, and I have not accomplished anything. I was so convinced that my cutting it down into pieces, 3 months at a time, I could manage it. I’ve lost 1 pound, thought endless time about exercising but have only walked twice. I’ve eaten some more vegetables. I haven’t left earlier or gotten home earlier. I have not even opened the book for the life coach certification. We have a fundraiser in March for PinoStrong, let’s hope it happens.
The reality is, if I am gentle on myself, I continue to accomplish a lot. I just don’t give myself credit. I open my eyes every morning whether earlier or later and realize it is another day without my son. Once that realization hits you, you think, ugh, I have to get up and do this all over again. I have to breathe through the day and make things happen. On many of those days, you really don’t just feel like it. You want to close your eyes and either go back to sleep or want to open them again and hope you are waking up from this nightmare. While I cannot say that I feel like dying, I have many of my AngelStrong friends that have felt that. Danny would not be happy with me if I did. For me, while I have not been a person that is afraid of dying, I am truly less afraid now. I hope I will see him on the other side or that he will be the one waiting for me when I am called home.
I have a month and a half left to accomplish my quarter goals. At this point, I will be happy if I accomplish 2 of them. Which 2 will it be, I can’t really say. What I can say for sure is that every day, I wake up and think of Danny. I miss him, He is always on my mind. Some days I cry, not every day anymore (which also makes me sad….another topic for the blog). I go to work, try and stay focused and do what I need to do. Before I know it, the day is over and I got through another day. I close my eyes with a sadness so deep in your soul that it is hard to explain unless you have felt it. These things are not on my list of new year’s resolutions but they are a huge accomplishment when you have lost a child.
