Happy New Year, and welcome 2023!
As usual, it is time for resolutions. I know, I know, but I am a resolution kind of girl, and for the most part I manage to stick to at least one each year. I say one because I usually come up with four or five every New Year’s Day, and yes, I do write them down. No, I don’t include diet or workout because let’s face it – I either will or I won’t. There’s no gray area where either one is concerned, so why bother? I prefer to examine areas of my life that need improvement creatively and organizationally. I love anything creative, which means I’m much more likely to follow through.
My main resolution for 2023 comes from an epiphany I had over the Christmas break. Truthfully, I have been struggling lately—at work, at home, at life in general. I’ve lost my Joy like Riley in Inside Out. Instead, I’ve been more exhausted blah than anything else. Of course, a lot of that comes from teaching in a post-Covid world, but it also comes from the stagnation in my life’s pond. This is the realization I had while preparing for all the festivities of Christmas: there are no ripples in my pond. Life has become incredibly routine in every aspect. Variety, which existed before Covid, has vanished. Life is mundane. Work, home, parenting, marriage, holidays, extra-curricular activities—everything is the same.
I know I am blessed. I do not take this for granted. However, variety is the spice of life, and right now there is an empty slot where that particular container should be. About the only thing unpredictable in my life is the weather, but given that I have lived in North Carolina all my life, even its unpredictability is predictable. In a nutshell, I’m bored. Life is no longer tossing random stones into my pond. So what to do?
Given that it is New Year’s, I decided it was time to create my own ripples. It’s time I wake up and shake up my life. 2023 is going to be a year of new creative pursuits and new adventures. This is a resolution to which I know I can stick because if I don’t, then it will be more of the same, and I am not down with banality.
So here’s to the New Year, to sticking to resolutions and finding Joy again. Here’s to 2023 being the best year since 2009 when my son was born and my first book published (talk about ripples!). Here’s to variety and the death of the mundane. Here’s to finding enough stones this year to create those ripples. May 2023 find all our ponds flowing, and if we’re lucky, maybe some geese will show up to ride our creative currents. (https://booksbybeth.net/2022/08/06/geese-riding-the-waves/