The Year Things Get Better For Me

It's nearly midnight on a work night, so I don't have time to write the post that this deserves, but one thing I have to learn to do to be a better adult is to just do things. Whether or not these things can be done to the ridiculous standards of my aspirational (but, as of yet, in no way actual) self, just do them, so that some version of the thing you wanted exists, instead of a just a big pile of nothing that slowly rots away until not even a hint of what you originally intended exists.

Or something. I'm not at my most eloquent tonight. But moving past that is sort of the theme of that last paragraph, whether you can tell that or not. And look, I did.

Things have been very hard for me for a while now. There are a lot of reasons for that. More than the two big ones I'm about to highlight now, and, in fact, more big ones just than just those two. But those two are kinda the point of this paragraph, so let's get there. 1) The birth of my son, 19 months ago, was super traumatic for me, in a way that has given me legit PTSD symptoms since then. (To be clear, I had been diagnosed with PTSD from earlier issues even before that, but I found out, the hard way, in the past year and a half the difference between a sort of latent, distant trauma that haunts you occasionally and at the least opportune time, and the kind that makes your whole life the least opportune time.  Number 2) My whole life, as many of you have known, I have been very, very tired.

I have a chance, I think, to finally address both of these. For the trauma, I am experimenting with a new therapy, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), which is promisingly like EMDR, and is practiced by a therapist very geographically near to me. I'll get into the details at a later date, but if it is what it's cracked up to be, it's possible that I am already well on my way to recovery from this issue, and, maybe, from issues that have haunted me in the past.

For the tiredness, I have stumbled upon a hypothesis: I am in no way medically or scientifically sure, but I have reason to suspect that I may suffer from obstructive sleep apnea as a result of my shockingly large tonsils. Even if this is not the case, there is a very large possibility that the resulting restricted air flow is a big part of my rather consistent torpor. (Googled it: I used that word correctly! Awesome!) In support of my feelings of wanting to resolve this, Dan has agreed to allow me to use a large portion of the money we received as gift for our recent wedding (Yay, us!) to have my tonsils reduced in a relatively painless laser procedure called a Laser Tonsil Ablation.

It is my feeling that IF both of these two treatments have even half of the effect that I hope that they do, I will be, very suddenly, in possession of a great deal of energy, both emotional and physical. To have a well-rested and relatively relaxed brain for the first time in my life...it's something to think about.

This could be the year things get better for me.

I have a strong desire not to waste this potential energy: not to let the years of dreams and aspirations that I have always pushed off until things were better turn to the proverbial pile of nothing, rotting away. As such, I have made a list of very specific goals for the next year of my life: convenient timing, as my birthday was a mere three days ago. Maybe I'll accomplish all of before I turn 32. Maybe they will be forgotten in two months time. For better or worse, herein lies, at least, the hint of what I intend, today. In no particular order:

Train for and run 5k with Dan
Be able to do one chin-up
Learn 6 Dance songs Well
Record 5 Original Songs
Finish Editing Zack's First Book
First Draft of Screenplay
2 College Courses
Keep Car Cleaner-ish
Keep Office Cleaner-ish
Switch to capsule wardrobe
Therapy for trauma
Learn to play 5 songs on the uke
Reduce tonsils
Put 500 in IRA
Improve credit score 75 points
Complete 3 large art projects
Pick up 3000 pieces of litter
Maintain nails/eyebrows/teeth/skin
Write/mail letters to 15 people from my life
25 blog posts
Put together Ezra's baby book
6 books (at least 3 non-audiobooks)
Read Le Petit Prince in French
Get Ezra caught up with speech
Be able to touch my toes


This list was written on my phone yesterday, though I added that last one just now, as it's absence on the list was an oversight.

I hope to have the time to explain my choices a bit better in the future, in some of the upcoming twenty-five (make that twenty-four) blog posts. For now, let me just state that I intend to share my journey here, and hopefully on Imgur, the goal of the latter being that it has the same feeling as a weight loss post, but with a more holistic (and less judgmental of fat people) vibe.

Today, I worked on the following:

-I had a very productive therapy session.
-I went for a walk and picked up forty-five pieces of litter, then cleaned a decent amount of trash out of my car (by no means enough to consider it clean) before coming inside.
-I used my Clairisonic and moisturized, then followed up with frownies on my forehead wrinkles (this is skincare-related)
-I did a few quick arm exercises before bed, some "girl-style" push-ups (soon enough, I will be back to the respectable ones) just so the day wouldn't be a total fitness loss.
-I wrote this blog post. Almost. It'll be done in a sec.


So...more to come. If you intend to join me on this journey, I thank you for being more interested than I have really warranted with this post. If you're checking back on this many months in the future to see how far I've come...well, good for me, I guess that means I'm still at it.

On with it.