I am feeling quite disappointed in myself today. It is March 31st, with a new month on the horizon, and I REALLY missed the mark on my 2020 resolutions this month. I’d love to blame it on the lockdown and social distancing, but as Brit Hume once said, “Winners take responsibility. Losers blame others.”
I think today I want to look at my resolutions and reflect on why I didn’t meet my goals. This hurts me more than it hurts you, dangit!
1. Read 52 books – I started two books this month, and finished none. I decided to make all my books this month to be about women, by women, for women. I feel like a bad feminist for not getting this done.
via GIPHY. Saturday Night Live. “Weekend Update.” 2017. Performances by Tina Fey, Michael Che, and Colin Jost. Produced by Lorne Michaels.
2. Do pull ups – I spent the first half of this month tackling this head on, but then COVID happened, and my gym closed. Unfortunately, all my doors are too tall for me to place a pull-up bar in the doorway. I’ve been working my arms, back and shoulders doing home workouts to split the difference, but I’m not sure how effective it is.
3. Spend LESS. TIME. SCROLLING – This got SO much worse! You’d think with all the time at home I’d spend more time that I now have on more creative endeavors. No. BIG swing and a miss.
4. Write 104 blog posts – I managed to keep this one going!
5. Romantic trip with Aaron from Dec. 26 2020 – Jan. 2 2021 – Assuming this lockdown doesn’t last until December, all is still well here.
6. Stop engaging in schadenfreude – While there weren’t any intense rabbit holes, I definitely poked my head in more than once.
7. Take better care of my skin – My skin looks good! The skincare I have seems to be working for now.
8. Go stargazing – Haven’t gone yet. Too cold. COVID curfew.
9. Get a new job – In the beginning of the month, I churned out applications to each job I mildly had the ability to do well. I need to keep this up, but I think my timeframe isn’t as realistic with the whole world in a big freeze.
10. Do a handstand – I hope I can keep working on my upper body strength to pull this off, but I’ve also found a new way to work up to this goal.
11. Go see two of my favorite performers – Broadway shows are on hold during the lockdown. If we’re not out by July, and I miss my Hamilton date, I will riot.
12. Lose weight – No change at all, between me doing well and then cancelling it out with bad habits.
13. Give Aaron a great 26th birthday – My brain has hatched a few ideas for this.
14. Be a better friend, wife, sister, daughter, and granddaughter – I made a lot of effort towards this goal. I am adjusting pretty well to this lockdown, but a lot of my friends are going stir crazy and anxious. I think I’ve done a good job of being present for them. I went home and surprised my family with a visit this past weekend and I think that made a big difference! I’ve been working to strike a balance of being there for my friends who need it, while also giving Aaron quality time. However, I only called my grandfather once in the past two weeks. He and my grandmother don’t have company with them right now at all because none of us want to accidentally give them the sickness, and I can’t believe that I didn’t make more time to call them or write them or something.
15. Be happy – In general, this month was okay, but I definitely feel crummy today. I had a rough start to my morning and things didn’t get much better from there.
I know I will feel better when I’ve accomplished my goals. I feel so tired at the end of the day that I just want to do nothing. I just stare at my phone until I get up and go to bed. I hate feeling so numb to the world, and I know that when I have kids I’ll have to spend that time in the evening checking homework and doing carpool and providing my kids with love and attention, while still being a good supportive wife and sharing some of that time to just be with Aaron.
I want to take this as a learning opportunity to shift towards a more promising way to get past these bigger missteps:
- Read 52 books. I will read these books. I bought them and I will finish them. To that effect, I will have something to write about as far as my monthly reads for March. Coming soon! In April, I will be focusing mainly on poetry. Poetry collections aren’t really three hundred pages of tiny type, they’re more nuanced but shorter. When I finish my four books this month, I hope I can revisit at least one of these books.
- Spend LESS. TIME. SCROLLING. I need to enable a rule about this. Maybe a few. Here’s a challenge: I can only scroll from sunrise to sunset. No more spending hours in bed scrolling!
- Stop engaging in schadenfreude. In my bouts of schadenfreude, I never felt satisfied. I recognized (and then stopped) in the moment, “Hang on a second, this isn’t making me happy.” I felt frustrated or angry. I need to let it go.
- Lose weight – I am at an unhealthy weight. Forget looks, I don’t feel good. I feel sluggish and weak. I need to put more stock into what I eat and how I keep active.
- Be a better friend, wife, sister, daughter, and granddaughter – I will contact them twice a week every week in April.
I am a big believer in “there is no failure, only failure to try.” I have not abandoned my resolutions, even if I haven’t done as well with them as I would like. I will fall seven times, but stand up eight!
