Flourish to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly congenial environment…because now that I’m growing where I’ve been transplanted, it’s time to grow into health
I think I’d decided on my word for the year for 2024 in 2022 but I hadn’t realised how appropriate it was for where I am right now.. I know I’ve still got lessons to learn, changes to make and ways to travel. I can recognise the face in the mirror..and it’s time to get back to growing into the person I was meant to be.
My word for 2024 is FLOURISH. To flourish is to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly congenial environment. This year I’m going to work on growing where I’ve been transplanted. It’s time for ME to flourish.
It’s a new year. And in the new year, we (usually) make these grandiose resolutions of wanting to better, healthier, fitter (some of us take out a gym membership!), more successful, more prosperous, an improved version of our previous selves; we want to make a change.
I’m not any different. I started to make my list of my new year resolutions last night, in the run up to midight. Then I remembered: I don’t have to. I already have a list. Because, really, what are resolutions but a guide for the things we want for ourselves, what we want to improve, right?
2022 was a year of seismic change for me. It was like someone took the tray that had everything I found familiar and safe and turned it upside down. I was recovering from my father’s death and I found myself confronted with the bomb site that was my life, surrounded by debris that looked familiar. There were items that I thought looked and felt familiar, or resembled things that I thought I knew, that no longer provided the same sense of security that they used to. I had to face the end of a relationship that I thought would never end – a relationship that defined my identity, my sense of self and, I thought, my future.
I suppose it was a long time coming. When you lose yourself in something, when you make impossible compromises (you know the ones, the ones where you do things because you think you’re doing it in the name of love), when you accept treatment that you otherwise wouldn’t (because, again, love), when you make adjustments in the name of being understanding (because you feel you have more capacity to understand), when you think it’s okay to settle because you think this is your lot, you made a decision, so you live with it.
It takes a life event of disaster proportions to make you see things from a different and possibly a clearer perspective. In my case, it was the end of a more-than-2-decade-long relationship for me to reevaluate everything. I guess from a making-a-change perspective, it was good that I was forced to do all these reevaluations from a different location. I was alone and I had to confront all the compromises and decisions I’d made to date. And it looked awful. I’m not blaming anyone else. I made those decisions. To paraphrase a once-favourite Wilson Phillips song, I’ve got no one to blame for my unhappiness, I got myself into my own mess. I contributed to the majority of the nuclear explosion that changed my life.
But, still thinking about that Wilson Phillips song, I am holding on. Because I know that things will change. Because now, I recognise the person in the mirror again. I recognise the person talking again. I’m learning from the experiences and I am coming out knowing who I am, grateful because I know I am so very blessed, learning the lessons and not settling for the bare minimum ever again.
I am a work in progress and I have a long way to go. But I am taking it a day at a time, a step at a time.
I am ready for the challenges that 2023 will bring because I know my God has me in the palm of His hands, I have people who truly love me supporting me and rooting for me.
I won’t have to edit who I am anymore.
I am walking forward being truly and authentically me!
“The New Year is a painting not yet painted; a path not yet stepped on; a wing not yet taken off! Things haven’t happened as yet! Before the clock strikes twelve, remember that you are blessed with the ability to reshape your life!”
Mehmet Murat Ildan
I said I wasn’t going to do New Year’s resolutions.
But I knew that if I didn’t write things down, if I didn’t list things down, I would start the year without a rough plan. And the people who know me well know that I love a list!
New year and new (recycled) resolutions. Have you written written down yours?
I’ve said I would, this year, do the following:
Write more (either blog or journal, although, great Instagram captions might apply?)
Read more
Get healthy (no that’s not a metaphor for me gaining weight, on the contrary, I need to lose weight, lower my blood sugar levels and move more)
Take more photographs (for the blog, for Instagram and for my personal development)
Finish the Instaretreat (I am such a good starter but a very weak finisher. I need help and motivation!)
Bake and cook more (and write about it, hey, it’s two birds with one stone! Yay me!)
I’ve been busy with real life and the past few weeks have been quite the challenge. I have been adjusting to my new meds (that’s another blog, in itself. But it takes courage to write it down for all and sundry to see. I’m not quite that brave yet!), and they make me really sluggish. But I’m trying to find ways to deal with the sluggishness and the excuses I make for being stuck in the inertia of inactivity.
The week started with me hitting the ground running. It was a short week, but was it ever so busy. The work just kept running and I just felt that some of the people I worked for were throwing stuff at me because they wanted to hold my attention for longer. I used to work for just one person but now that I’m working for 3 directors, someone feels a little less looked after. Bless! I can be magnanimous now but at times this week, I’ve had to bite my tongue and sit on my hands and give in to my desire to say, “Hey, I know what you’re up to, and I’m not falling for the rank-pulling! What are you, five?!” But I didn’t…and I am proud of myself.
I’ve put together a book list and I’ve started with a humdinger of a read. I’m reading Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions. Have you read it? What are your thoughts? Unlike some people, I don’t mind spoilers because I do get stuck in and despite knowing the end, I still, somehow, get surprised (if there is an unexpected twist). Opinions are welcome! Oh and if you are reading something, what are you reading? I’m curious!
The kitchen in my tiny little flat has been busy this weekend. I’ve actually managed to make banana jam. Why banana jam, you ask? Because Alan and I went to Yotam Ottolenghi’s Spitalfields restaurant and I fell in love with the banana jam (it’s slathered on that lovely piece of sourdough on the the left in the picture below).
Alan found the recipe and I couldn’t believe something delicious only had 5 ingredients and it was so easy to do! I’ll have to remember not to scarf down my banana jam-laden piece of toast and take a photo for the blog (and my food IG account @yellyeats…yep, I’m not ashamed to self promote!). I’m told (by the blog I read it from) that this recipe isn’t in any of Ottolenghi’s books so if you’re interested in making it, the recipe I used Belleau Kitchen’s measurements and it’s ever so yummy. I will, however, take a page from Dominic’s book and tweak it so that it becomes my version of the recipe. I do have a few more bananas left so I guess that means I’m baking banana bread again!
In terms of health, I am going to charge up my Fitbit again and start counting steps again. I’m going for 10,000 steps or more every day. Fingers crossed!
I’ve got to stop now as I do need to finish washing up and making a fish pie for supper. It’s been a lazy weekend but a busy one too! What have you been up to?
It’s a Sunday all over again. Sometimes I wonder whether it’s really a sign that one is getting older that the days just whoosh past. I wonder why I always feel like there’s not enough time in the day to do everything that I want to do. I always feel like I’m not making the most of my time. I know there is more to life than efficiency, but I kind of feel like I’m supposed to accomplish more than I’m supposed to.
There was one task that I meant to do before Sunday lunchtime and I was quite pleased with myself when I managed to finish it by 4PM yesterday. I’m the worst procrastinator in the world but I do have off days.
Which brings me to my goals for 2016. I thought I’d set goals that were relatively sensible. I have this dream of turning my absorption about food into something that earns me money. I’m not quite sure yet how I’m going to get there and where “there” is, but this year, I want to do things that’ll help me find out where I want to go! So that being said, this is my working list (open to additions and amendments, of course!):
Blog at least once a week. So at the end of the year, I should have at least 52 entries for this year!
Learn a recipe a week – sweet or savoury. My goal really has been to cook through all my cookbooks. Not entirely sure I will want to do that because I’d rather bake cakes. But life is a balance. So I need to make sure I cook and bake!
Finish my 2 CBT books. I need to finish them because I’m still working on my emotional equilibrium!
Be more organised at work – the ultimate goal is to become more proactive than reactive. I used to be so organised. I used to multi-task ever so effciently. I want to get back to being Capability Jane and have a feeling of control over my work again.
Learn that it is important to find that sweet spot where work and life are balanced. Work is important but so is my personal life and the relationships in it!
This is my working list. I think these goals are realistic. The first 3 items are easy enough to schedule in. But the last 2, well, these need sitting down and thinking about. It’s the thinking about that is easily injected with procrastination and avoidance. But I am working on that!
I am determined to make 2016 the year I certainly sort things out. My life is certainly more complicated than I want it. 2016 is the year I declutter and make sure I have only what is necessary and bring out what is surplus.
Like so many others, I have had lists (and lists) of New Year’s resolutions. Some of them achieved, some of them started but not finished, some of them just left on the list without progress. I have always allowed myself excuses like I’m too busy at school or, my current one, work has kept be too busy to do anything else. I have made the usual resolutions to lose weight, keep tidy, finish this or that project, read more…you name it, I’ve probably resolved to do something similar.
But 2016 is different. It’s a milestone year for me and I intend to make things special. I intend to tick everything off my to-do list. I want to look at my to-do list on 31 December 2016 and look at all those lovely and resolute ticks! So this year, I have resolved to sit down and think about what I really want to achieve this year. I am also a major procrastinator so I’m not going to allow myself the luxury of waiting. I have the art of prevaricating down to a science! But I am determined that I will have my goals set by this time next week!
I want to find that lovely balance between work and leisure time. I want to make all my efforts count!
Yellywelly 