2018 was a new kind of year for me. I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions: if I decided that I needed to do something new or different, then I was going to start then and there. Why wait until the calendar rolls over?
But I entered 2018 in a bad place. I was anxious. Angry. Unhappy. Sad. Lost. None of it made sense: I had the job that I wanted as a kid, my family was amazing, and we had just gotten settled in a new home. But I didn’t feel right or happy, and I didn’t know how to get out of it. And if I stayed the course, it was not going to end well. So I decided to start working on myself.
2018 was a year that I discovered self-care. I knew what it what the phrase meant, but I didn’t really know what it meant for me. I needed to find happiness and a sense of calm. I needed to be able to go home and feel good about myself and what I did that day. Or if things went bad, I needed to find a way not to let it become all-consuming, to recover and take on things the next day refreshed and ready to battle.
Part of this stems from my OCD. It puts me in bad places mentally now and again or puts me in a thought loop that I get trapped in. I had known that for a long time, but I thought it was just part of me. That was how it was going to be forever. But in 2018, I sought help. I talked to people. Talking things through, recognizing patterns of behavior and outcomes, identifying coping mechanisms all helped me stop feeling weak and gave me a bit of a sense of control. It’s still ongoing—it will be for a while—but it did help me better understand myself.
And in talking through things, I realized that I had forgotten how to be happy. Or even what it meant. I had gotten into my head that if things were good, that I should always be happy. Smiling. Music and dancing all around me. It was an unrealistic expectation, yet I felt angry, resentful, and scared that it wasn’t my reality. And the fact that it wasn’t meant that something was wrong. So I spent all my time and effort trying to identify problems, pick them apart and solve them. And when no problems existed, I worked to identify which problems could come my way so that I could prevent them. It was all about defense: prepare for loss so that it doesn’t happen, rather than enjoy whatever you have at this moment.
Instead, I had to learn to allow myself to be happy. I had to take time to look around and see the good that was around me and take pride and comfort in what was there. I took the occasional afternoon off and went golfing. I allowed myself to read a book instead of review papers in bed. I listened at home to the conversations that were taking place rather than trying to end them to go off to work or to run errands. And slowly, I started to see things I had been overlooking or taking for granted. There were things around me that I could smile about again.
I’m still not completely there yet. Not 100%. But I know it’s a process. It’s not something that I do and then never have to worry about again. It’s something I have to continue to work on and push forward with. But there are good things out there and things to be happy about. 2018 was a step in the right direction. I’m looking to continue down that path in 2019.
