It's going. H-how?

Hi!

 

Yeah, I know.

 

If you've been reading this for a while, you'll recall my New Year's Resolutions for The Year of She-Ra Princess of Power Two Thousand and Fifteen. Let's review:

 

1. Write every day (can we actually keep this up? this feels overly ambitious but wow).

 

Ahahahahaha. Nope! Although I am happy to report that recently a set of tumblers and pins inside our head has started moving either again or for the first time and I sometimes wake up thinking about something and I just know how to write it, and it sticks around. Like, days go by and I still know how it has to go, and it doesn’t make me feel sick or stressed out when I think about writing it, I still feel confident. I wrote something a few weeks ago and while I was waiting for feedback I assumed my reader had read it and decided it was shit, and I was sorta kinda thinking “well even if it’s shit, I’m going to figure out somewhere to put it anyway”. A long time ago I used to think up things and just really really like them and like seeing other people think over the same thing, to see what their response was. Almost as if putting down words in a certain order had created a spell for myself, and I wanted to see if it worked on anyone else. Part of me realizes this sounds egotistical and I just cannot bring myself to care; that’s how much fun it is. It’s one kind of tragedy to lose something, but to lose something and then forget you’ve lost it unmakes a person a little bit. I’ll stop trying to describe what it’s like to have this back, because it’s just a lot of self-hand shaking and back patting (and crying and staring up at nothing and saying “thank you~”, tbh).

 

2) Get a physical calendar like a Filofax or something and use it (really helpful for knowing what's going on for a given day/week, and who cares about scales of time beyond a day or a week, honestly).

 

I did do this! I got a thing called *~*Inner Vision*~* and it was great, it let me schedule my life down to the half hour, and had space for journaling and setting goals every month and week, along with big year-long goals and stuff. By the end of the year I wasn’t using it nearly as much because it felt too intense, but for the first seven or so months, total gold. Couldn’t have moved across the country without it.

 

3. We wanted to do a handwavey gesture but no let's spell out the self care a bit more, they're worth Resolving just to reinforce the good work that's already being done: work out 3 times a week (and let's say no *more* than that, ahem, Summer!Courtney, that time we did an hour of yoga as a warmup for running a 5K).

 

Hahahaha, oh man, if ONLY I worked out three times a week these days. It’s so weird, because I understand intellectually that I will mentally and emotionally feel better if I work out regularly. I remember it feeling good. I even remember liking the action of running or doing push-ups or what have you. But the Season has me, and it’s so hard. I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s really legitimately not winter here in Portland, that I can expect it to be non-painful when I go outside. I realize this might seem a bit dramatic, but I just got back from a road trip where standing for a couple minutes outside in below-freezing temperatures resulted in me getting the worst migraine I’ve had in recent memory and being laid out for two days. I’m used to December being an untrustworthy time for outdoor escapades.

 

4. Sleep, at night, for ideally 8 hours, no less than 6 no more than 10, again, the sort of sleep that if you told a person on a bus how much and when you were sleeping they wouldn't comment on it.

 

Sleeping! Sleeping is good! Once of the benefits of being your own boss and setting your own schedule is that you get to decide when the work day starts. So on the nights that are rough, I can adjust accordingly (or take the day off).

 

5) Eat three times a day and actually at times the average human would recognize as meal times, and don't eat outside of those times.

 

This has likewise been good! I do have the occasional snack, but I also got a lot better with planning meals and groceries this year -- partly necessitated by cutting expenses. Our grocery bill is waaaaay lower than it used to be, thanks to making sure we’re just buying stuff we’ll use for the week. Sometimes I’m still a little weirded out by how long it’s been since I’ve had chocolate or a cookie, since those things trigger compulsive food shit for me, but I think it’s still weirder that it’s been over a year since I’ve skipped a meal.

 

6. Don't drink alcohol.

 

Two years and counting. :)

 

7. No reading any "takes" about anything...bonus: this will probably also mean talking less to people who care about "takes" because you won't have anything to say to them and they'll get bored and leave you alone quickly.

 

This was the BEST, and I highly recommend it if it sounds appealing to you.

 

This is all I’ve got right now. idk, idk, it’s already shaping up to be a really fucking weird year. I can’t even think of what I want to Resolve for 2016, but we should do that, yeah?

 

1. Don’t drink alcohol.
2. Write more and put it somewhere in public, gawd Courtney, you jerkk.
3. I want to write “stop being afraid” SO BADLY but that’s impossible so I guess just Be Honest...I see myself standing on a beach a lot and sometimes I realize I’m staring at my feet and watching my feet and the water carry sand over them, heel-to-toe. And I find myself thinking “it’s wet...I’m wet…” back and forth, on and on. And there is a sound but a disconnected sound, and sometimes my feet are wet, and sometimes there is wind. And I can keep all these things as just separate things that are happening to me, and I can be confused by all of them, and feel uncomfortable and not understand anything about my situation. Or, I can pick my head up and turn my body around and admit that I’m standing at the edge of the ocean, and that’s why things are the way they are. That’s what it feels like to do things, sometimes. It’s not about not being afraid, it’s about walking into the sea, knowing I can’t breathe in there, and yet making myself do it anyway.
4. So like I said, figure out a place to put my writing in public again.
   Happy 2016