Friday 3 January 2014

I figure I will last about a week. Two, tops.

(Thoughts on formal resolutions this year tended to fall on a helpless kind of ennui about whether or not it's effective to get fired up about some big change only to find out it's an unwelcome, unsustainable chore. 

Or bore, as it were. 

So instead I'm trying something different.)

In 2014 I will have:

A little less structure: An effort to not follow a schedule, pick up every dirty dish I pass or plan meals within an inch of my life. Over Christmas we skipped lunch on purpose two days in a row and the world didn't end or anything.

A little more time with Sam working away at anxiety now that we (I?) have grief under control (NOT SURE WHO JUST WROTE THAT): He's going to help me figure out how I can think myself into a panic just by being me and how to not be me anymore. I can't wait to see who I am when all this is done. I hope they like her. 

(Of course they'll like her. Bridget, but without all of her debilitating doubt? Hell, I might just steal her for myself). 

A little less: alcohol 

A little more: sleep. 

A little more time spent on doing exactly what I want to do: For example, I want to make a little felt case for my headphones. I've wanted to do this for weeks but I got sidetracked making little felt ornaments for Christmas and then I didn't want to see any fucking felt after that. 

A break from the Devil: The last time I attempt this I made it five years and would have made it further but then Cole's heart stopped and my plan went out the window. I didn't say I don't need Caleb, I just need him to be less like Cole, if that makes any sense at all. Cold turkeys aren't the best turkeys but I am minding my time carefully with him.

Some new shirts: because comfort and also skulls. I need new skulls. They all have names, did you know that? I use the boys' middle names mostly but sometimes I make up new ones and then everyone is suspicious until they realize I'm talking about a sweater. 

A drawing a day: I did it before and filled two sketchbooks. Now I have five new sketchbooks and haven't done a thing. 

More walks on the beach, dinners out and special time with each child and boy: Ruth seems to need me and hardly ever need me, Henry needs me to direct him a little more and bail him out less, as in he needs man-chores without the inevitable list of questions that I answer instead of letting him solve on his own. If I remove myself from his available list of answers he tends to figure things out quite nicely. I feel like I don't even know half the people I live with anymore from trying to bite around the edges of my own reality for so long. And I've hardly been down to the beach these past few months at all. 

It ain't right, I tell you.

More breathing deeply: less blacking out! This is purely a selfish plan on my part.

More coffee: Because fuck it, coffee's good and trying not to drink it just leaves me...well, cold and sort of sleepy.