The Path for 2024 - Thrive and Detach

It's my least favorite season now. We are in the midst of the coldest and darkest days. It's easy for me to fall into a pessimistic state of mind. 

My consolation is that winter is temporary. One reason I don't pack up and move to a warmer climate is because I take some enjoyment from watching the seasons change. 

On one of my favorite opinion sites, OnlySky, Writer Adam Lee said it best. He calls this The Clearing Season. The world isn't dead. It's only sleeping. The sun is already on the ascent and making the effort to shine a bit more each day. The bare trees will be green again one day.  Maybe this is the time for me sit quietly and wait for my turn to bloom this year. 

I say this because I want to talk about my New Year's Resolution today, which isn't a resolution at all (I ditched that word years ago).  Resolve is a tricky emotion, which is why in this blog I often write about goals or plans at the beginning of the year rather than resolutions. You may be asking why am I talking about it in February. People tend to talk about New Year's Resolutions at the end of December or the beginning of January. That's because resolutions, plans, and goals are all well and good, but they tend to fade halfway through January. February is usually when people give up on the goals rather than continue talking about them. 

My mindset for 2024 is not a goal or a plan, but a path.  I am talking about it a month after the new year began because I have had some time to sit with the idea and actually put it into practice. This is more of a check in with what I mapped out for the year. I have had some time to explore it. Where do I stand emotionally? 

I want to define 2024 with the two words: thrive and detach.

What do they mean? Well, I came up with the word thrive while watching an interview with one of my favorite online fitness trainers last year. She used the word thrive repeatedly in the interview and talked about what it meant to be truly healthy in every aspect of your life. She talked about doing what it takes to feel your best physically and emotionally. Food and exercise were part of it, but so were sleep and mental health. I started thinking about everything that could mean for me. Am I thriving? What could I do to go beyond mere existence and feel my most alive?

Detach is a word that I feel I need to be better acquainted with. I am the queen of attachment. I attach myself to people. I attach myself to plans. I attach myself to things. This creates all kinds of expectations and that sets me up for disappointment. I don't deal well with disappointment. I need a more detached mindset.

Putting myself on the Path of Thrive and Detach wasn't as easy as I expected it to be. 2024 started out much less happily than I wanted it to - and for no good reason.  I had a happy December, but once the thrill of the holidays was gone, I came crashing down. I went from having a full schedule filled with friends, family, and activity to the blank slate of 2024 and it terrified me.  I felt as if I had little to look forward to for a few reasons.

To begin with I have no theater productions in the future. I'm feeling rather demoralized about theater. I am even thinking it's time to give up theater because I'm not a very castable actress and I will always lose out to more talented competition. Sometimes I tire of giving up so much time to be window dressing in a musical, or play the most forgettable role in a play. I love to perform, but I often don't truly feel like I'm giving a performance my whole heart because I am not given the opportunity to give it my whole heart. Nobody wants it. I am supposed to be in the background and not try to outshine the important people on stage. On the other hand if  I don't do it, I miss out on the social aspect of theater. I miss bonding with a cast. But even the cast bonding is hit or miss. My most recent play (almost a year ago now) was a beautiful cast bonding experience that I still miss.  Conversely, in the show prior to that one, I often felt excluded from an established clique (although there were some kind and fun people in cast and crew). That assumes I am cast. I have been so disheartened by failed auditions. 

Kevin and I have no exotic vacations planned. We aren't taking luxury European cruises or traversing national parks this year as we prepare for some major home renovations. I have 25 days of PTO in my job and 20 of them are open. Is anything new or special on the horizon? I am not talking only about travel. There are no major celebrations coming up. There are no events scheduled. The days ahead all look the same.

It wasn't as if I could take the initiative and start planning out a more exciting year myself. My finances are in the toilet because my job pays me an abysmal salary and there is little hope of a raise. I will be spending another year accounting down to the penny. 

So I went from having a great month to having a complete emotional meltdown in the space of twenty-four hours. That wasn't exactly thriving, was it? It certainly wasn't detaching. What's worse is that I felt bad about feeling bad. I live a blessed and privileged life aside from my distress over my bad salary.  I enjoy adequate health, a happy marriage, a stable roof over my head, a steady (if low paying) job, a loving family, a circle of close friends, and an adorable pony. 

That made me feel guilty for acting like a spoiled princess. I was so worried about an uncertain and dull future that I was ignoring a strong present. I felt bad for feeling bad. How dare I complain my life isn't living up to impossible expectations when I have a life many would envy?

I have to forgive myself for thinking irrationally now and then. I know what my personality is like. I am someone who always likes to be doing activities. I like to always have a plan. I have major FOMO (and I'm okay with that). This isn't a bug. It's a feature. I need to learn to work with that. I can't turn it off, but I can dial it down. Maybe rather than plan a hundred activities, I can plan how I am going to ride the wave of uncertainty.

I remembered how I felt in the spring of 2020 when I had no choice but to do nothing. I made it through that. I lost nothing. 

Knowing I was going to be going through this quiet season, it was time to put a plan into action. I seemed to be showing myself how badly I needed this mental and physical reset. I needed to learn how to be at peace with uncertainty. I needed, as I said when I began this post, to thrive.

My first order of business was to build some ritual into my day. I had to find ways to calm my overthinking brain and find ways to be present and enjoy the small moments.

I have a structure for my mornings now. I am learning to take comfort in ritual.

I start the day with a glass of water with lemon. The woo-woo gurus will recommend doing this because it's "cleansing" or "detoxifying" or whatever other claptrap they can come up with. I drink it because it's refreshing. It clears the morning funk out of my mouth and the tart taste is invigorating - dare I say more so than the morning coffee? Plus it gives me an extra hit of vitamin C.

Most days I do my regular workout. I canceled my Daily Burn subscription and switched to Apple Fitness+. Part of that is because I didn't like the direction Daily Burn was taking. The other part is that my insurance pays for the first year of Apple Fitness+. If it's not a workout morning, I will at least do some stretching or a short yoga workout. If I don't have to go into the office, I may even do a short meditation. Fitness+ provides me with something called "Mindful Cooldowns" that include both stretching and short meditations, as well as longer meditations (which is good because I couldn't keep up with Daily Calm). 

My favorite part of the morning is when I have my morning coffee. It's not the coffee itself that I savor as much as the drinking time. I go through my fussy way of preparing it. Then as I drink it I do my morning puzzles (Wordle, Quordle, Octordle, and Connections). I also try to take a minute or two to breathe simply enjoy the sunrise. If it's an office day, I don't have much time for longer meditations, so taking a few moments to sit quietly with my coffee before jumping in the shower are key.

I listen more to music now too. I got out of the habit of having music on during normal activities. Even while driving music is being replaced by podcasts. Now when I go through my morning I make sure to be listening to something other than podcasts. I often like music that is soothing (current obsession is Ludovico Einaudi) and sometimes I will get dressed to upbeat tunes (I often default to my old favorite 80s new wave playlists). 

Thanks to social media, YouTube, and podcasts, I don't read nearly as much as I used to. I am reconnecting with books. I read on the train. I read before bedtime. I read in the park on my lunch hour weather permitting.

I try to do a gratitude practice each day. I live a deeply blessed life and I have to remember that when I'm having meltdowns. I also give myself daily affirmations. I may not be perfect, or massively talented, but there is a lot I can do. 

I have evening rituals as well. I take pleasure in cooking dinner. I enjoy my TV time with Kevin. I catch up on my favorite YouTube subscriptions. I turn off electronics at a certain point and spend some time stretching and breathing. If I need entertainment, I switch to books.

I am smarter about social media now. In the past six or seven years I have done everything from all-out addictive constant scrolling to deleting Facebook and Instagram entirely (Instagram is still gone). I didn't like the feeling of defaulting to Facebook any time I wasn't occupied, but I didn't like being out of touch with friends either. In 2023 I attempted to avoid opening Facebook at all unless I wanted to share a blog post and then I would stay on Facebook a day or two to see if anyone liked or commented on it. That didn't stop me from "peeking" at it when I was supposed to be restricting myself. Plus whenever I returned to Facebook with a blog post, I saw my friends' posts and felt I was missing out on their lives. I missed birthdays. I hate missing birthdays.

This year I came up with a perfect solution. I have a daily Facebook Time. I set aside fifteen minutes a day (thirty on weekends) where I give Facebook my full attention (no scrolling while watching TV for example). I set a timer. This gives me plenty of time to see what my friends are up to, see when people's birthdays are, and avoid being caught up in lengthy flame wars or be sidetracked by clickbait. It seems to work for me.

I also did something I hate doing. I unfriended several people. Some of my friends have made it clear they aren't interested in interacting with me. So-called friends who haven't reacted to anything I posted for a year or more and ignored any attempt I make to interact with them aren't people I want to keep around. I restarted my Facebook in 2019 with the idea that I wouldn't be a friend collector and I would only be friends with people who truly wanted to stay in touch with me. I am sticking to my guns on that now.

So now that I took up way too much space talking about my mental health, so now it's time to drone on endlessly about my physical health. How am I physically thriving?

Ten years ago I started the year in the best physical shape of my life. I was pounding it at the gym and eating the right foods and it showed. I also started that year with a pain in my hip that would be a harbinger of many physical ailments to come. The pain increased as the months went on and I ended up needing surgery. Since that surgery I experienced multiple joint injuries. Some of them needed extensive treatment. I had major issues with my elbows. I have random issues with my shoulders and knees. The relief from the surgery was temporary as I now have arthritis in my hip. I am never going to be able to work out at the intensity I worked out ten years ago. My body has changed and I need to accept that.

My current complaint is a compressed disc in my lower spine. I tried to ignore it or try treating it myself at home with Bob and Brad videos. My insurance is scanty and I didn't want to deal with the copays of doctor visits and PT visits. The pain never went away. I had to do a cost/benefit analysis. What corners could I cut to make these copays? Was it worth the sacrifice to feel better?

I am now in physical therapy and I have an expert's eyes on my movement. I learned something I never would have noticed on my own. I tend to arch my back and stick my pelvis outward (I guess I want to make sure the world sees my beautiful round booty). That is crushing the disc even more. I'm training myself to straighten out my back and the pain is lessened. It hasn't been easy. It's one step forward and two steps back. I think the pain is improving only to feel it differently the next day. 

I keep working on it and I do what I can to stay strong, fit, and flexible. I do my daily workouts with Apple Fitness+. I stretch at least once a day, if not twice. I do the exercises my therapist prescribed. I still ride. I still dance. These activities always make me feel better, which goes to show activity is always better for pain than inactivity.

My sleep is still not optimal. I do my best to turn off electronics at a certain point in the evening. I use the meditations and wind-down workouts on Apple Fitness+ to calm my busy head. I try to remember to practice 4-7-8 breathing when I am tossing and turning and it seems to help. But I also don't allow myself to worry about my lack of sleep. My 23andMe report says I am genetically predisposed to not sleeping deeply. I am also genetically predisposed to not be affected too negatively by lack of sleep. 

I suppose I can't talk about my best health without talking about my diet. I have been reading up a lot on foods that are supposedly inflammatory and how that might affect my current crop of physical ailments. It's hard to know exactly what to eat because there is some conflicting information out there. At the end of the day, the advice is to cut sugar and processed foods and limit animal fats. These are things I try to do anyway, but I am trying to pay more attention now. Maybe it will do nothing, but reducing these foods is never going to be bad for me anyway. Losing weight is not the goal, but I suppose if I do lose weight, it will stress my joints less. I still intermittent fast for digestive purposes. I continue to shop heavily at the farm market and cook as many homemade meals as possible. I say no to free office pizza. (The past week and coming two weeks will be an exception as Kevin is in a play and doesn't have time to wait for me to cook dinner in the evenings when he has to head to a rehearsal or a performance.)

As I explore these new areas to thrive, it's time to explain the other half of this post. What do I mean by detach?

There are many things I need to detach from. I need to detach from this FOMO mindset that always needs to be planning. I need to detach from the idea my life has to go a certain way. I also need to detach from people.

Let me clarify that. I am not becoming a hermit or a misanthrope. I need to detach from my expectations of people. 

I am not a misanthrope. I am an extrovert who tends to form bonds with people quickly. I don't like to feel detached from others. I don't like to feel rejected (which is why Facebook unfriendings and unfollowings can smart so much). I don't like to feel left out.

I tend to read too much into friendly gestures. If I have good conversations with someone or  if I enjoy doing specific activities with certain people, I tend to assume they are my new BFFs. (I think I also need to detach from hyperbole. Let's say I assume a closer friendship than what exists.) Then social media show me the world some of my acquaintances occupy - and all the ways I am not part of it. I think, "But I thought we were friends!" It's time for me to let go of my definition of friend. I can't be everything to everyone. 

There is another situation I need to watch out for. In the past ten or fifteen years, I have been in situations where old friends and people from my past come to me with remorse for falling away and a desire for advice, sympathy, or wisdom (or what I provide that passes for it). I am an empathetic, deep-thinking person and it seems people value my opinion and want what comforts they feel I can provide. In situations like these bonds feel stronger as my new-old friends share intimacies. I start to believe this is the beginning of a new era of friendship. We will now stay close in the future.

Unfortunately my friends will take what they need from me and move on. Sometimes they move on cruelly, even unfriending me on Facebook. Sometimes they aren't so cruel as to burn the bridge outright, but they will walk away from the bridge and leave it to rot on its own - without caring that I might still be standing on it. I am more hurt than I was before they reached out. I didn't ask for your friendship, but you offered it to me and then walked away.

Logically I know people are not responsible for my feelings. They go on with their lives. They can't linger over friends they may not have time for. They may still appreciate that I served a purpose in their lives even if they can't give me their full attention. Nobody is obligated to be my BFF because I offered support and encouragement at one point.

But on the other hand, I do feel a bit angry that people who come to me looking for support do so knowing the kind of person I am. In fact I think they do it partially because they know how I want to bond. They know I won't be able to turn them down. They know how much I value connections. Then they threw it away when I wasn't useful anymore.

There isn't much I can do about the past other than learn to pause and breathe and move on when I feel as worked up as I seem to be as I write this. I need to detach and accept.

The question is trying to decide what to do going forward. What do I say to someone who comes to me in the future? Do I set boundaries and refuse to help, or do I give that comfort or advice and accept whatever connections I make are temporary? Can I learn to do that? Can I value a temporary feeling of closeness and accept it won't last?

I rambled on enough. I think as I work through all these difficult feelings I feel a strange sense of optimism. 2024 is a blank slate. Anything can happen. That might be a positive thing.