We got a new house. It took us time to paint and clean but we finally moved in. We were supposed to have flooring done before moving but the work took longer than expected. In fact, it is still taking longer than expected and I’m losing patience.
In addition to the floor fiasco, Time Warner took a full week to restore Internet service to our home, despite repeated phone calls to them explaining that every day that I’m without connectivity costs me money. I’m sure my demands added to their delay. So to help them understand better, I cancelled the service and have U-verse to remedy Time Warner’s incompetence.
Two weeks into the new year and I’m ready to curl up under the covers and call it a day. Don’t even get me started about pop culture the past couple of weeks. My heroes are getting old and checking out. It’s all a rollercoaster, and I wasn’t prepared.
When I started school this past week, I had my students draft a paper about what they hoped would be different this year. I asked them to write it in the form of a letter and think about something they wanted to change with the coming of 2016.
With the shaky start to this year, I feel like this might be a good exercise for me too. I need to gain a little focus and think about how I want 2016 to differ from the last year.
Granted, I have no power over who dies in a year and I would have lost already on that bet but I do hope that 2016 takes it a bit easier from now on. It’s been major so far. I need this year to slow down.
For me personally, this year, I hope to find my creative voice again. In our little house, I felt stifled and found it hard to sit still and dream. Since we are in a new place with a dedicated space that is all mine, I hope that I can reconnect with the parts of my brain that fostered my creative juices. I want to write longer pieces and that requires the alone time and space to talk to myself and stare at walls uninterrupted by someone else’s presence. Creative pursuits are often solitary, at least for the writer.
In addition to my writing voice, this year I hope to rediscover time for myself. This is part of having my own space and seeking creativity. I’m a mother and a wife and I find myself very often taking care of the needs of my family before I care for myself. Very often I’m left exhausted, hungry and cranky. It’s an imperative this year that I stop the caretaking to the degree of forgetting myself and make sure that I recharge.
What else do I want this year?
I want the political season to not be the general idiot sandwich that it usually is. I know that’s probably asking too much and considering that Donald Trump is the almost nominee for the Republican Party, I think I need to unplug from the discourse until it is time to vote and I can cast my ballot with a clear head having missed the ignorance of another campaign. I know where I stand on the issues and I know the candidate who gets my vote.
I need idealism.
Growing older, the hopefulness and anticipation of my youth seems like a distance memory. I feel jaded and I think that makes it tough to create a wishlist for the future. Aging makes one question the very thought of a future and trying to attach uncertainty to uncertainty seems frightening.
So what I’m looking for in 2016 is not unusual. I don’t even find it unique. I think I just need this year to give me a glimpse of something with which I lost touch.
I want to look at the possibilities and stop gauging what could possiby go wrong. I want my 2016 to teach me again to just take a leap and see what happens. I want exhilaration and romance this year — not the romance that my husband gives but the dream state that comes with discovery and new ideas.
I just want 2016 to be a better year than 2015. It wasn’t all bad, but I need a year of magic and more than any one thing, I’m looking for a chance to breathe, to love, to see and to write.
