Hey there! It’s 2020 and I love it. I love how it looks and how fun it is to say. I’m excited that it’s a new year full of new goals and possibilities (and no doubt surprises and curve balls that we could never fully anticipate).
Last year I set the intention of documenting the year with a weekly update. It was supposed to be a great record for me to look back on and a way of sharing my life in a chatty, diary like kind of way. A wrap up of what I’d been up to. The good, the bad, the ugly.
The thing is, a chunk of the way through 2019, I realised that it wasn’t a great year for me emotionally. Reliving everything week after week was actually having a negative effect on my mental health. Some weeks it was hard to even report on anything good because to leave out some private and painful stuff would have felt deceptive and I got sick of being cryptic or saying over and over how hard it all was.
So I stopped.
I am probably crazy but I have decided to try again this year.
Maybe I’m just a slow learner, but I prefer to call myself an optimist haha. I want to give this another crack. I want to think that I’m stronger, more resilient, more determined, wiser etc. I want to see how I’ve grown – in writing.
However, this year there is an important change: If it stops feeling good I will stop doing it. I won’t feel guilty or weird about things being ‘incomplete’.
I truly appreciate the people who take the time out of their busy lives to read my blog. In this fast paced world, it can be hard to take the time to watch or read anything that’s over a minute long. But I have to admit, I’d write here even if nobody was watching.
I hope we all have a wonderful 2020 and that even if we don’t, we realise our strength and power x
Here’s my first week of 2020…
1 January – Wednesday
Last night we let the Little Mister stay up later than usual for NYE. All of this morning we heard about HOW TIRED HE WAS. So ungrateful haha.
I am militant about taking down the Christmas tree on the 1st of January every year. Any longer and I fear it’d be up until the next Christmas! Best to just get it done!
The Little Miss helped me. She was quick to figure out what I was doing and tried to be helpful. It was very cute watching her take baubles off the tree and hand them to me or put them back in their containers. Ha. Containers. More like the flimsy packs they came in 5000 years ago haha.
While the Little Miss napped, I watched Snapped on Hayu. I find that show oddly soothing and have been known to fall asleep watching it. I call it my Lady Murder Show and joke with my husband that watching it is my ‘research’ on how to become a lady murderer. There are so many fun ways to do it, you guys. Mostly you just have to manipulate someone who has the hots for you to do the dirty work. Easy peasy!
I had to go to the IGA in the afternoon and I was going to go alone! The Little Miss had noticed I was getting ready to leave the house (kind of like when a pet dog notices it’s almost walk time) and she decided that it wasn’t a good idea so when I got to the door, I found her standing across it with her arms spread wide as if to block me from opening it. SO CHEEKY!
2 January – Thursday
I woke up a bit out of sorts. Occasionally my anxiety does a number on me and tells me that I’ll always be out of the loop socially and that I’m doomed to be excluded from things and that I’ll be let down by people who I trusted to be true friends. Did I mention that anxiety lies and exaggerates? WTF, brain. I think it’s a little scar I carry from the past. Anyhow, I told my husband how I was feeling and he did a great job of bringing me back to the present and putting things in perspective. He was all “WE DID THINGS WITH FRIENDS THIS WEEK” and I was all, “OH YEAH. FORGOT ABOUT THAT.” Then he hugged me and I was OK.
I had my first proper phone chat with my mum in ages. I sat in my room and we gasbagged for ages. It can be hard to do this with kids making noise and interrupting or having ears that are too young (and mouths too big haha) for some of the things we want to talk about. Very therapeutic.
Being the beginning of a new year, I decided to start making little changes that I’ve never gotten around to. I have a private/personal Instagram account that I only share with my IRL friends and family. I changed the handle so it has nothing to do with my blog/public socials persona anymore. My husband changed his from his real full name to something a little less obvious so he can comment on my stuff without giving too much information about our identities (I’d expressed concerns about this before and he is very protective so it made sense to him). He didn’t mind and sweetly chose something related to my bloggings (he truly did not have to and I definitely never asked him to). He said it doesn’t matter as he never posts anything haha.
I took some time to tune in a lot more to learning about the fire devastation in the eastern states of Australia today. I had been able to have the luxury of not really paying attention (partly out of self preservation because I knew how emotional it would be when I did) but I began to feel I had a responsibility to inform myself. It was a very strange feeling being safe, breathing clear air in WA. It felt so foreign to my fun summer life reality here and was quite jarring and hard to absorb. I felt a little like I should feel guilty. All I knew was that my heart went out to everyone was affected and that I would look for small ways to make a positive difference.
3 January – Friday
I really took a while to get out of bed this morning! My husband was still off work and I was really slowing down for the first time in a long time. It was hard to just let myself relax, because I felt the pressure and guilt (self inflicted) of not getting up. But I reminded myself that I fucking deserved that rest and that I absolutely have needed to refresh and restore my energy. 2019 was a hell of a year and quite honestly the mental load of EVERYTHING had been too much on my plate.
I felt some guilt about having to wait until pay day before I can make any donations to help those affected by the bushfires over east. I reminded myself that the charities and organisations involved will need a lot of help for a long time yet and that it’s OK to not be able to contribute yet.
Tonight we went to my parents’ house to have one last catch up with my brother before he headed back to Melbourne the next day. The Little Mister was quite sad – he idolises his uncle. I comforted him and let him cry and feel sad and when he was alone in his room I could hear his plaintive little voice singing “Everything’s NOT awesome” from the Lego Movie 2 to himself. So sad and adorable (and a little dramatic haha).
It was a good day and having Mr Unprepared trying harder to share the mental load for our family again felt good.
4 January – Saturday
Holy shit I had the worst night’s sleep. I had no idea why. I felt restless and jittery and I must have seen the clock every hour until 4am. It felt like I do when there’s a full moon – except there wasn’t a full moon.
I resolved to burn some sage incense and to remember to swap my worn out pillow for a new one that had been stashed in the Little Miss’ room and constantly forgotten about. I hoped it would help.
We had a belated Christmas gathering with my husband’s family at the beach today. My favourite thing was watching the little cousins play together. Their ages are all over the shop, but they’ve reached a place where they can all interact and enjoy each others’ company which is very sweet to witness.
I watched a good Insta story tonight from someone who was talking about her journey in dealing with toxic people who you can’t cut off or avoid. She talked about how her goal was to remember to visualise taking the bad energy they’ve dumped on/towards you and mentally putting it down and walking away from it because it’s not yours to carry. I made a note to remember this as I enter a new year. I am the worst for absorbing people’s bad energy. I want to do better in this area!
5 January – Sunday
This afternoon we caught up with the inlaws again. Watching the cousins play again was a delight. The Little Mister felt sad again because his cousins were leaving (right after my brother flew home) and I think he’s starting to get a complex about being abandoned haha.
Not to mention today was my husband’s last day off work!
6 January – Monday
Today Mr Unprepared went back to work and I did a very big exhale and took today to chill and recover. I wrote nothing on my to do list for the whole morning (unusual for me – I love a list) and it was so relaxed I actually watched ALL of the Instagram stories until I ran out of stuff to watch. That NEVER happens haha. And no I did not neglect the kids. They just pottered about and bugged me for snacks as usual!
I just eased my way back into real life (knowing what day of the week it is and remembering what normality looks like). I was stoked with myself because I’d ordered a Hello Fresh delivery. It saves me/us so much time and mental space. Less grocery store visits and no having to think up new ideas for meals on my own!
This month Mr Unprepared has to cover his boss while he’s on leave so we have been prepared for the fact that things could be pretty full on. He was home late today. We talked about ways he can handle his work stress better than he has in the past (he can be a perfectionist and become a bit over invested in it all) and I hope we can keep our shit together. New year, new vibe!
7 January – Tuesday
Today I took the kids to the shops so the Little Mister could spend a gift voucher. It was a very grown up moment for him (the first time he’s been able to pick his own present). He had $40 to spend and it was good for him to learn the value of what he was choosing. He was stoked with his new Nintendo Switch game and a POP figurine (I had no clue what they were until my nephew wanted one a couple of Christmases ago).
There was a wildlife visit at the shopping centre so we stopped in there. The Little Mister patted a blue tongue lizard named Larry and the kids got to pet a koala. The Little Miss did not want to leave! That kid LOVES animals. It’s a beautiful thing (but also challenging when you need to move on haha).
We’ve been spending as much time as possible in my parents’ pool this summer. It’s been important to build up the Little Mister’s swimming skills and confidence. Something has clicked with him these holidays and it’s been beautiful to watch. He swam across the deep end of the pool without even thinking today and he’s having so much fun. Trust me, it’s a BIG deal. I’m so happy for him.
The Little Miss (poor second child who is yet to begin lessons) made progress too. She can now kick her legs on command and she was stoked with herself as I took her all around the pool. She wanted to be like her big brother and insisted on wearing a swim fin and his flippers which were comically large and inevitably fell off her feet.
She showed her dad her kicking skills in the bath tonight which was pretty cool.
All gifs are from giphy.com
